Warnings
by RapiDe
Summary: This is a world run by big business, who says the truth has any say? FINISHED! EPILOGUE UP!
1. Default Chapter

Legal disclaimers: I don't own or lay claim to Resident Evil or anything directly associated with it in any way, shape or form, it belongs to other people who earn far more money than me. I'm borrowing the idea and one of the characters, Chris Redfield, for this story, however.

Disclaimers: Anything original to this story is the product of nothing more than my imagination, so ask if you want to borrow any of it. Also, this is Resident Evil, so expect bloodshed, gore and death in large amounts if you read on from here.

Important note: This is a prequel to Matt6's story "Operation: Falling STARS" focusing on the character of Serena Baccarin. It covers how Chris Redfield came to be thrown out of the Air Force for insubordination and ended up joining the S.T.A.R.S. while focusing on how Serena fits into the overall story. Credit where credits due, Matt6 and SportyGirl indirectly gave me the idea of doing this. If you see words surrounded by this symbol / then it denotes characters thinking or something important highlighted. Advance apologies if my knowledge of firearms isn't up to much, I'm afraid this just isn't an area I know much about. I made up the fictional location in Iraq, too. Do I really need to state that Umbrella will be popping up in here somewhere? All reviews welcomed.

Lost Souls Chapter One 

/April 1st 1996, Kuwait/

The fires were all out now, she couldn't help but notice every time she looked out of the window. She'd last been here five years ago-a different time, a different life, a different woman in more ways than one casually thought about-and had seen the gouts of bloody fire, sick black smoke, heard the echoing, rumbling roar of the blown oil wells exploding into the sky with her own eyes and ears. It had turned brilliant day to darkest night as though a shroud of grey-black smoking cloud had been drawn across the sky, made it almost impossible to go outside at all-and, she recalled with particular clarity, from a hundred metres away the heat had melted the soles of rubber boots on the feet. It had nearly killed her, come to think of it, the closest they'd come after all they'd tried...

Brilliantly lit by a burning-bright sun, crystal clear pale-blue cloudless sky dominated everything now, except the almost pearly white endless swathes of desert sand that swept away from the city almost as far as the eye could see-north, south, east and west. Thin lines of grey-black tarmac cut through it here and there, while, closer still, tall, pale-painted buildings rose out of the desert as though they were shards cast down by the moon. Few dark buildings were anywhere to be seen, the poor weather that often attended this part of the world making a mockery of attempts to be lurid and "stylish" as desert winds and harsh sands stripped away paint and headings as less than nothing.

Somewhere far down below her the beep of horns, the grind of metal and the shouting of men spoke of a recovering city at last staggering to its feet, fighting its way back to a kind of normalcy that, once upon a time, would have been the only thing everyone in it could have ever imagined. What the Hell did /they/ know? Normalcy was a figment of the imagination that protected you from the truth, all it really did was keep you sane-and she should know.

The name of the hotel didn't matter, nor the city, it was all just a means to an end, a point between where she was coming from and where she was going. She needed a day to breathe, think and prepare, that was all, so she'd arranged this.

The top floor below the Penthouse suite would have, to some people, seemed either extravagant or obvious, or both. It was neither, even she didn't know why she was here, she'd been given a mission and she would carry it out, to the letter. If she received further orders, she would simply carry out those too. Something else people would never understand about her, that-they all knew she knew damn well that the penny pinching, bloated, useless and helpless politicians and bureaucrats in the House and Hill would never have either the guts or the drive to get off of their candy soft often-violated backsides and even attempt to do something like this. 

They were all more concerned with banging the female Interns, courting big business so that it would write them big cheques for anything they wanted and running the US Government like it was their big, personal Piggy Bank, something the people had no right to make demands on-but she still carried out orders without question, and committed truly awful acts without a moments hesitation. She could have told them why, but that was no part of the job description. For one thing, if anyone who did what they did couldn't see past the fact that they served the nation, not the state, then they were the ones who didn't understand what they were doing. America was in her Soul, not her heart, she existed to serve-now, at least. That she knew enough to protect herself was another matter.

Stepping back from the bathroom window, she pulled fully across the dark curtains before turning towards the sink. Studying herself in the big, clear mirror, she allowed herself the slightest smile. At least, something she could be proud of.

An inch shy of six feet tall, her almost Amazonian physique could have drawn eyes anywhere if that mattered. Muscles rippled and shifted across her toned body, up and down her arms and legs as she shifted, eliciting a purr of pleasure. Smooth jet-black hair fell to her waist, rolling over shoulders, chest and back as softly as a lovers touch, caressing soft curves and silken skin with sensual ease. 

Her skin was tawny, a light mahogany brown with traces of a darker tone, a luxurious mixture of South and North America, a gift from her northern Caucasian father and half-Indian southern mother. Brilliant sapphire-blue eyes gleamed in a flawless, fine-featured face that made men whisper behind their hands, women stare and glare. 

All a tool, unless she wanted it otherwise. Her Instructors had always told her that she could have had anyone she wanted, at all, from anywhere, at a look. /But/, they'd also taught her that desire makes you stupid, while love makes you a fool. "Use what you've got while you've got it" was the best motto to live by according to them, and she tended to agree. It was true what they said, youth was wasted on the young...

Of course, at twenty-six she was hardly old, but in five years she often felt like she'd aged fifty in ways she didn't want to think about. "Came with the territory" she'd been told-and she believed it.

That there was nothing to be missed anywhere on her she was sure of, due to the fact that she wore nothing more than jet-black shorts and her hair, as usual, before final preparation. However, on her left breast, over her heart, she saw, again, the tattoo, and her mind cleared in a moment. The Phoenix, the Firebird, life after death, rebirth, her in a word. It was past time she stopped thinking about all of this and got to work, she had a job to do.

A touch of expertly applied make-up darkened the skin, while the application of a certain liquid made sure that it wouldn't run or smudge in the heat. Contact lenses changed brilliant blue to dull and dark brown, while a dark-blue dress and light-blue veil which covered her lower face and a headdress, under which her dark hair was bound up tight, changed her face and looks. 

She spoke all of the dialects like a native right down to the accent, knew her way around the country blindfolded after hours spent studying maps from every direction and could have told anyone all of the local customs without blinking an eye. She also knew the layout of Saddam's forces where she was going better than the local commanders, had all of the papers she might need, up-to-the-minute intelligence memorised and a two-shot miniaturised Magnum pistol hidden in a sling holster that ran around her chest just under her breasts. 

Men, she knew from experience, almost invariably took one look at a beautiful woman then stared at her chest as though there was nothing else in the world, no matter what they said or-in most cases-did. However, it was even more entertaining when one considered the fact that, even given a professionals thoroughness, at least half were more interested in giving her breasts a squeeze than checking whether or not any object that was strapped practically around them should be there or not.

Her name was Serena, Serena Baccarin. Once upon a time it had been Serena Liparti, but that didn't matter anymore...

She was ready, now to the Ba'Hakar Valley she went.

/May 30th, the USA, the Pentagon/

/What am I doing here?/ was all that went through Chris Redfield's mind when he first received his summons to the Pentagon. When he got there, dressed in dark-blue air force uniform and tie with a sky-blue shirt, his uniform cap on his head, the question didn't change. It still didn't change when he was handed a Pass at the front entrance that gave him a Clearance he hadn't even heard of before once he showed his papers. 

It /did/ change when he reached the briefing room early-ten minutes early, in fact, just to spite his frequently annoyed superiors, who hated his relentless determination to do things his way, often against orders-to /What the /Hell/ am I doing here?!/. This was, he would later admit, probably a very stupid question to have been asking given where he had ended up, having followed a very specific set of instructions and used a Coded Key-Card to access a sealed, closed room. Once he'd gotten where he was going, he should have asked /why/ would a pilot out of the Air Force, aged only 23 and with a mere four years experience in the military, have been called to a closed meeting at the Headquarters of the whole US military? /Why/ as in "what could they want with me?"

The room was fifteen foot long by ten wide by seven tall. At the far end away from the single door a projection screen covered most of the wall, while in the centre of the room a horseshoe shaped table of transparent pale plastic was set so that the empty heel of the shoe faced the door directly, meaning that no-one could enter without being seen by those at the table first. Seven swivel seats were set around the table, hardback tough plastic chairs on metal bases set into the carpet-less floor, while windows and other viewing points were simply non-existent. The entire room was lit by dull white lamps set into the ceiling, three of them set along the centre of the room from back to front. The only other ornamentation was the door lock. There was no handle, just a card reader set vertically into the wall besides the door which flashed green to signal open, red for locked. The door fitted flawlessly into the wall, he couldn't even pick out an edge. 

Given that everything in the room but him was coloured jet black, it gave him the distinct feeling that he was dead and in a tomb. From what he'd heard of this place, that probably wasn't such an exaggeration, although he hoped that at least some of the wilder tales had been exaggerated.

It was the briefing room known as "The Chamber" to those who'd both been there and heard of it, the place which had never existed on any floor plans and couldn't be found unless the owners wanted it to be. People came here to be given missions that were never discussed outside the room and, more often than not, had "never happened". 

Suspected to be one of very few rooms outside Langley in any building that could be rated as "Above" Top Secret, it was the kind of place that no-one would ever even attempt to bug because they would never be able to find it. Worse, if they somehow did, "kind men" in white coats would escort them away in a Straitjacket doped to the eyeballs with tranquillisers and leave them locked in a padded room for the rest of their lives. No one would ever ask after them, not even families.

Worse, if you were officially invited there you more than likely stood only a fifty/fifty chance, at best, of coming back from wherever you were being sent. Given that missions which were so illegal that those who carried them out had had to go into hiding under an assumed identity abroad for the rest of their lives at the height of the Cold War had been set up from this room, he didn't doubt it for a minute. Of course, almost all of what had just run through his head was hearsay and rumour, but it had been his experience that sometimes, in the forces, these were the only truths.

It crossed his mind that maybe he was here because he'd put his commanding officers nose out of joint by explaining where he could shove certain orders in graphic detail when he was on a mission one too many times, but he dismissed the thought immediately. His CO might have wanted to strangle him with barbed wire in his sleep as often as not, but even he had to accept that Chris was an ace pilot who was unafraid to take risks, risks best described as suicidal in some cases. He didn't let being in trouble stop him from carrying out a mission, would keep going far past the point of no return if necessary to get the job done and had gotten into and through more trouble and real danger than a number of soldiers would ever know. 

His habit of doing whatever it took had started when he was seventeen, he would always remember, when his kid sister, Claire, was eleven, when he had seen his parents car, with them inside, get run right over by a tanker truck which had come around a corner far too fast... After a while, once some semblance of sense had come back into his life, largely thanks to his tough old grandfather, Pierce Redfield, who had spent all of his sixty-eight years (at the time) not taking any shit from anyone and teaching his son to do the same, then his grandson, he'd thought it through, and realised what he had to do. From then on it was just him, him and Claire, and he just had to find a way to make it work, no matter what it took...

He sat down at the head of the table, where the senior officer would sit in any briefing, and smirked. Pulling off his uniform cap, he placed it on the table to the side, then leant forward so that he could see his reflection in the tables reflective surface as he ran his hands through his hair. He'd changed a /lot/ since seventeen, it had to be said...

He'd gained an inch in height to reach 5'10 and a half. He'd put on weight, the lanky teenager becoming the hard-muscled young man. Bright light-brown eyes, once filled with nothing but a sense of childish mischief and an almost innocent sense of adventure, now gleamed with intelligence and hard-earned experience that had taught him a few things about life, some of which he'd never wanted to know. Light-brown hair flared up from his forehead and swept back towards his neck, although it was cut close back and sides, while a strong face and the good looks granted by youth enhanced by genetics made women take a second look.

He was an up-and-coming member of the Air Force who would have been much further along the line where promotion and juicy assignments were concerned if it hadn't been for his continual disrespect of his superiors. The problem was, he didn't care, nobody talked down to him without earning the right, which just wearing a fancy uniform certainly didn't grant one.

The door suddenly beeped and unlocked, giving Chris barely enough time to assume a comfortable slouching position in the chair before he shot to his feet and saluted so fast he almost fell over. The man who walked through the door didn't just command respect by weight of his achievements as much as his position, he made one want to grant it as a matter of course just by being in the same room. Very, very few people commanded that kind of attention to Chris's mind, fewer still truly deserved it once one got past the tough outer shell and bluster. This man would have made George Washington snap to attention and be proud he had a lifetime later.

General Lucas Moralto was Italian American with swarthy looks, dark-brown eyes and a full head of slightly curled silver hair, once jet-black, that had made the fact very obvious. Six feet tall with an athletes slim build, with ever-craggy features and cold eyes that had seen sights that would never be spoken of, even more evident now he was in his late sixties, he wore an air force uniform and cap, exactly the same as Chris's but carrying more badges and medals than some people even knew existed. More obviously, he dominated the room from the moment he entered it with a glance. 

Given just his list of known accomplishments after a fifty-year career in the forces Chris wouldn't have expected anything less. No-one stood on a battlefield as many times as Moralto had and got remembered by his troops without having the kind of presence and force of will that Politicians would pay for for the rest of their lives just so that they could demonstrate it even once. More to the point, Moralto had come up through the ranks the hard way, starting as a Private in the army before even the Korean War, in which he had served with distinction. 

He'd served with the Army, Navy and Air Force in his time, and every one of his Commanders had had the highest respect for his ability, but had often done all that they could to prevent him rising through the ranks. He'd always done whatever it took to make the mission a success, but had so rarely followed orders, even right from the top, to the letter, that he'd had his Senior Officers at their wits end while his men would have followed him into Hell without a moments hesitation. 

It was common knowledge that he should have retired years ago with every award and medal there was at the minimum ranked among the Joint Chiefs, but instead he had insisted on staying on until he could no longer serve. He had only been promoted to General when his retirement speech was evidently about to be read out from the Podium to silence critics of the Chiefs of Staff. His decision to delay his retirement had turned plans made by very senior staff in the Pentagon concerning his departure and subsequent, unknown to him, long-planned retirement from public life upside down. That done, he'd just gone on as though it was the most normal thing in the world to decide, pretending to ignore frantic shredding of documents and rather more obvious hair tearing-out in back rooms.        

He was number one on Chris's short list of people who he not only wished to meet, to pay his respects at the very least, but serve under if it ever became possible. If even a tenth of his reputation was justified no soldier could ask for a better officer or leader, and Chris didn't doubt that it was /all/ true from the moment he saw the aged General. He felt the heat in his cheeks in a moment, but couldn't do a thing about it. He'd been caught playing the fool by his idol, the only thing more embarrassing and humiliating he could possibly have done would have been to be caught naked or "preoccupied"...

Moralto just smiled at the sight as Chris wondered whether or not he should just take poison and get it over with now. Then he spoke, and what he said was close to the last thing that Chris had expected.

"At ease, soldier, if you were some stiff-necked army politician who kissed butt at every opportunity and did only what you were told you damn well wouldn't be here. I want men who can think, act and react on their own and don't need their hands held while they shoot a gun. You struck me as one, so don't change my mind now" said Moralto, his voice deep and strong with an accent that linked him to too much time spent in Washington. 

That said, he waited until Chris remembered where he was standing, grabbed his cap and leapt out of the way before seating himself at the head of the table. He winked at Chris, then pulled off his own cap and sat down to wait for the others to arrive. It didn't take long after that.

A man in the light-brown uniform of the army Corp of Engineers came in next, a man as tall as Moralto, but with shoulders like a bull and huge long arms atop a runners legs he dwarfed anyone else in the room where sheer physical presence was concerned. Forty years younger than the aged General, corn-blonde hair and cloud-grey eyes were obvious on a tanned, powerful body, while his Texas drawl was obvious when he saluted Moralto and reported for duty. He was introduced as Lieutenant Aaron Bradley, call-sign "Techno", a tech and explosives genius, by Moralto when everyone had arrived.

The next arrival turned up in the uniform of the US Rangers, a Special Forces unit Chris knew was made up of deadly bastards who got the job done, he'd seen them work. Five-eight tall with the slim build of a natural athlete added to by vigorous regular workouts, he looked and was whip-quick with cold blue eyes that missed nothing and blonde hair the colour of the midday sun. He was introduced as Sergeant Tom Brown, call-sign "Iceman", Heavy Weapons Specialist.

Corporal "Mad" Bill Stamper came in last but one, a man dressed in the tan brown colour of the army. Five-seven, slim, thin and pale, he was the physically smallest man in the room and stuck out like a sore thumb because of it. Prematurely grey hair and a moustache made him look older than his late thirties, while limpid light green eyes seemed dull and almost dead. Chris wasn't fooled, nor were any of the others. Stamper was the kind of man no-one was a friend of because he didn't need or want them, added to the fact that he was the kind of man no-one outside of Special Op's would employ due to certain very unhealthy habits. When he was introduced as a Chemicals super-freak no-one blinked an eye. He didn't have a call-sign, apparently.

The last man arrived exactly on time, to the second. Chris was so surprised by the sudden entrance that he found himself staring at his watch to avoid the mans eyes, letting him know the exact moment.

Colonel Mickey Webb blasted into the room as though he owned the world, stared down everyone but Moralto, whose eyes he refused to meet, then grinned, flashing pearl-white perfect teeth. At six-three tall he was the tallest man in the room. With corded heavy muscles that strained his tan army uniform, black hair and blue eyes shining in the light, his face smiled but his eyes were as cold as Arctic ice. In his mid-thirties, he looked ten years younger and moved with a speed and grace the envy of anyone. He looked like the kind of man who knew his business and could carry it out like a professional, with eyes that were sharper than any sharpshooters Chris had ever seen and strong, dextrous hands that looked sculpted to hold weapons of all shapes and descriptions. Bradley was the only man who was built on the same scale, but everyone in the room would have put their money on Webb in a hot New York second. He was a senior Delta Force officer of considerable experience, call-sign "Sweeper", and the team commander. Moralto looked at him for less than ten seconds before Webb stopped posturing and took his chair at Moralto's right hand. Chris just smiled, where no-one could see.

The lights abruptly dimmed and the screen at the end of the room came on. It showed a satellite photograph of a steep-sided valley, with huge brown-rock cliff sides on the north, east and west, a small dirt track leading in from the south. The structure was large and rectangular, coloured a mixture of dull brown and gold which almost blended it with the sand. It took Chris a moment to realise that all of the features on the photograph were _too_ sharp, it took him almost as long as it took Moralto to walk to the screen and begin to talk to realise that not only had the photograph been enhanced and enlarged, a lot, it had been gone over with digital imagery. Someone had been very, very serious about getting a good picture of this place...

"Men, before I begin, I remind you that all here are bound by written promise, spoken word and your accepted codes as soldiers, as well as a variety of laws far too numerous to go into now, to not discuss anything you may see, hear or come to know of in this room with anyone, even each other, outside of it. Should any of you even so much as think of breaking these promises, you will all forfeit your careers, your freedom and, quite possibly, your lives, in that order. No-one will talk, no-one will look, no-one will know, no-one will care. I trust that we are all clear on this?" began Moralto, his voice easily carrying around the room. A chorus of affirmative answers sounded, so he continued. Chris silently began wondering just what he was getting into here, but reasoned that, with Moralto here, it couldn't be all bad. After all, the old man wouldn't be involved in something out and out suicidal, surely... 

"Thank you. Now that the necessary unpleasantness is out of the way, we can begin. You see before you the Ba'Hakar Valley in northern Iraq, until three months ago believed to be nothing more than maybe a suspect storage facility for either weapons and ammunition for the region or Weapons of Mass Destruction, both of which possibilities were being investigated by the CIA in preparation for possible air assault if WMD were confirmed. What they found was something else, which is where we come in" continued Moralto, the picture on the screen changing to show pictures of three men in ragged prison clothes facing off against six Iraqi soldiers with AK-47's. This picture was clearly taken from somewhere inside the valley-but, as the film started to run, Chris stopped caring where and when it had been taken.

All six soldiers opened fire on the men in prison clothes at close range, who made no attempt to dodge, making their bodies jerk as though they were marionettes on the strings of a demented puppeteer. Blood sprayed, fragments of flesh and bone flew, ones left arm practically disintegrated below the elbow, then they all collapsed, riddled with a hundred bullets after less than thirty seconds of shooting.

Chris nearly threw up, he wanted to, only Stamper failed to react, so he moved to ask Moralto just why the Hell they had just been forced to watch a cold-blooded field execution without warning-then froze, as the film kept running. The "dead" men moaned, twitched-then opened their eyes and began to slowly sit up. Their bodies were ruined, but it just meant that they took longer. They all saw the glassy eyes, pale, sickly skin, seeming lack of breathing, the blood pouring down, staining the pale golden sands as well as pale flesh and clothes a deep, dark, disturbing crimson red, they all heard the ungodly faint moan as the things mouths opened. Just as they were about to stand, the Iraqi's stepped forwards and shot the moving corpses again, even as dead hands reached out for them. This time, when the things fell back down again, they twitched-then stopped moving forever.

Chris realised that he'd stopped breathing and forced himself to start again. He should have said something, but his conscious mind had hidden in a dark corner and didn't want to come out after what he'd just seen, so someone else beat him to it.

"What, the _fuck_, was that, _sir_?!" Webb asked, his tone of voice suggesting that he'd seen worse, but not by much. Whether or not he'd admit it, there was also a strong suggestion in his tone of voice that "disturbed" was too weak a word to use as a description of how he felt after seeing the film, which had ended when the Iraqi's shot the moving corpses a second time.

"I think I know of drugs which can do that" muttered Stamper, not speaking to anyone in particular. He didn't notice, for several long moments, that everyone but Moralto was staring at him after he made the comment. Once he did, he just shrugged. "Hey, its what I do!" he offered, raising his hands to the sky in a sign of helplessness. Everyone kept staring at him until Moralto coughed to get their attention back.

"I wish I knew, Webb, I wish I knew. That, however, is the question everyone is asking, but no-one has managed to answer yet. The CIA and NSA are all over this since were keeping it in-house until /we/ know just what the Hells going on, let me be clear on that, but not one squeak of useful information has leaked out of any source since they started trying. However, they have been able to determine that there is a part of the facility so secure that you have to be personally cleared by Saddam himself, or a higher power, to get in. If you try and aren't cleared, you will simply be shot" stated Moralto, his cool tone matter of fact. He paused to look at everyone, one at a time, before continuing. The only person who showed any real expression, apart from mild distaste, was Stamper, who was staring at the scream almost dreamily, seemingly fascinated. Moralto nodded imperceptibly, just what he'd expected.

"So, given that we have information proving a highly probable real threat here and a complete unknown that may be situated underground to protect it from air assault, we come down to the chosen option: us, or, rather more particularly, you men gathered here in this room, excluding myself. I'm sure that all of you want me to get on with the briefing now, but I need to make certain facts clear first" said Moralto, pausing to gather himself. 

"This mission is Shadow Ops, you will all be flying so far below the radar if you do this that not one of you can be seen again should you fail. To this end, AWOL notices will be arranged for everyone to cover the period in question, which will leave a permanent black mark on your Dossiers, but an unofficial good word will ensure that only those who cannot know will not understand that you were serving your country above and beyond the call of duty. The Pentagon and all regional headquarters have cover stories in place to account for your absence and return, for those of you who both succeed and survive, the details of which I will not go into. Your family, friends and loved ones will be prevented from asking too many questions by the FBI and, if necessary, the CIA-but, you will be allowed to write a brief explanation note which will be "found" in the personal quarters of each of you on the day of the mission start. 

        Most importantly, physical remains can be identified through more means than any of you here know, which cannot be allowed, so all of you will be fitted with implants tuned to your heartbeats. These implants contain phosphor and another chemical which will propel the phosphor throughout the body in ten seconds, to which there is no "antidote". The fire will destroy the body completely, and everything else flammable in three feet, so if one of you is hit do not stand anywhere near that individual. Am I understood?" asked Moralto, his expression not changing as he looked at Chris, who had rapped the table with his knuckles to get attention.

"Sir, I understand everything so far, including the possible consequences, but I have one question. There have to be people much better qualified than us to carry out this kind of mission, professionals so to speak. Why aren't they being given a mission that is apparently of no small importance like this?" asked Chris, at which Moralto's expression became grim.

"Son, you are considered expendable by some, worthless by others and, worst of all, an individual in a man's army when everything important is really done by teamwork-or so they say. All of you here are, but I, personally, believe that this very fact shows a strength that will make this mission succeed no matter what. Also, those professionals you mention /will/ be involved in this. You will only know of one of them, but that individual will get you in and out if at all possible, so have faith in your comrades, carry out your mission in good order and time and carry plenty of ammunition as well as a very sharp knife. Anything else? No?" asked Moralto.

Webb hit the table with the palm of his hand, a hard thump that almost seemed to echo around the small room. Then he looked directly at Moralto, looking the old general straight in the eyes. "I think that I speak for everyone here when I say heard and understood, sir. We all joined up with the intention of doing our best for this land of freedom and plenty when we signed the forms, that ain't changed to me or any of us. So, can you cut out the creepy crap and just tell us what it is you need us all to do?" said Webb. Later, Chris couldn't help but think that Webb must have wanted to be John Wayne when he was a kid the way he looked and sounded sometimes...

Moralto smiled as though he hadn't heard anything sweeter to his ears since Vietnam, the expression almost taking in his ears. "Thank you, Webb. But I am just the conduit, you men are the tool. I'm going to get you in there, once you get there its all up to you. Your mission is to get in, get a sample of whatever Virus, drug or disease it is that their using to do what you saw to people, blow the place and get out again. I would say enjoy, but this is work, not pleasure. Just be careful, don't get yourself killed and remember to take care of all of the Scientists just in case. After all, you really don't want this stuff coming back at you" said Moralto, shaking his head...

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/Well, that's the first chapter over and done with. Reviews, please? More coming/

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	2. Chapter 2

Legal disclaimers: Anything that is directly part of the "Resident Evil" games belong to Capcom and everyone involved in their creation in their relevant ways. Anything else which appears in this story belongs to me. I'm just borrowing the "Resident Evil" set-up for a fictional story and make no claim on anything which isn't mine in any way.

Disclaimers: This is a "Resident Evil" story, so you should know what to expect if you read on from here, i.e. gore, bloodshed and death in large amounts.  

Important note: This story is a prequel to Matt6's story "Operation:Falling S.T.A.R.S." focusing on the character of Serena Baccarin. It covers how Chris Redfield came to be discharged from the Air Force and how the two of them connect to Matt6's story. If you want to know more, read the Disclaimers in Chapter One. All Reviews welcomed.

Lost Souls Chapter Two 

/June 6th 1996, Kamala village, the Kuwait-Iraq border/

Serena Baccarin was not happy, for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the six men, who were supposed to be professional soldiers all from what she understood, had precisely three minutes to make their rendezvous. There was not the slightest sign of them to be seen, and that was more than simply annoying. She was a professional, when she made plans she kept to them, if the soldiers sent on this mission couldn't understand that little they were off to a /bad/ start. Apart from that, the village was far too small for her to feel comfortable. She could get lost in a crowd, disappear in a mob and never be seen in a group. By herself she slipped in and out of places and lives as though she'd never been there with casual ease. With the villages population barely being above fifty she had much less in the way of options. She couldn't easily disguise her height without constantly adopting a bent-backed posture and walking in a particular way, while her sheer physicality was a significant problem since simple physical presence and her striking looks made people who saw her clearly remember her face.

With her skin darkened, her eyes coloured a dark, dull brown by contact lenses, a veil covering her lower face and a headdress her head, a long dress masking her physical attributes, her make-up and movements making her appear ten years older than she actually was as well as a cripple, she'd done what she could without taking radical measures. It didn't change the fact that she was a stranger in a place where strangers came less than once every ten years, nor did it change the fact that anyone who paid close enough attention with sharp eyes would spot that she was no Arab nor a natural native of the region. She couldn't wait long enough for someone to put the clues together, so if the soldiers didn't turn up on schedule she planned to leave, call it in and see just what "They who must be obeyed" ordered next.

A rumble in the distance caught her attention as sharp ears noticed something amiss, and she almost smiled where no-one could see. Vehicles were non-existent in the village beyond the antique car owned by the village Elder, so a truck engine roaring out loud in the middle of nowhere, coming fast closer, could and should mean only one thing. They were just going to make it, if it was them. Now, if they only remembered the plan about how her Extraction from the village was supposed to go...

*

The first thought Chris Redfield had on seeing the mud huts, small, sand-worn wooden buildings and tiny brick town hall of the village they were heading towards at speed in their battered old truck, was that he'd been wrong, there was worse than the shanty towns he'd seen in Mexico when flying border patrols than sometimes crossed over to guard against Smugglers, illegal immigrants and all other problems that the Border Guard apparently needed help with. The second was that he'd kill for a shower if the village had one, or even a bath if they had a watering hole where people did these things, but he was fantasising and he knew it. He'd done the research like a good little soldier for this one, he knew that these people had to walk miles daily just to get water to live, let alone wash with. The most he could perhaps hope for was a splash of cold water on his face and a quick swallow of tepid traces. Unlike he and the others, who had water stored in cooled flasks that would keep the water cold and reviving for a day easily and refilled whenever they had the opportunity, that was...

The big truck had massive wheels and a powerful engine that drove it through just about any terrain by sheer brute force, they'd been happy to discover. With a big canvas covering over the back section, two-thirds the length of the truck, despite the sweltering heat it also provided some shade for anyone who could stand it, which was just a bit better than sitting in the cab all day, which he'd been doing along with Tom Brown, who had somehow wound up driving, even with the windows wide open and their heads half out of them. The US Rangers Sergeant had looked like he was considering murder when ordered by Mickey Webb, the commanding officer, to drive, but he'd knuckled down and done the job, more because he felt safer with his hands on the wheel than anyone else, Chris strongly suspected. More to the point, he was actually a brilliant driver, Chris had discovered. The only reason they weren't early to the rendezvous was that the truck had broken down, and it had taken a despairing Aaron Bradley ten minutes to fix it as he complained about sub-standard gear, missing parts and a total lack of maintenance that had make the repairs more of attempt at partial reconstruction of the trucks engine than a "Mr. FixIt" quick effort. Chris was quite sure that he hadn't seen Aaron look as happy as when he was working hard on the old truck before or since the event, though, and the truck had run like a dream ever since, outside of a grinding changing of gears.

The dirt road was just that, someone had carved out a direct route to and from the village and driven heavy vehicles up and down it to solidify the dirt into a track. It was the kind of road Chris would have ridden Dirt bikes on as a teenager back in the States, and most certainly wasn't intended as a passage for a big vehicle like the truck, loose sand all over the place making it slippery, dips and ruts making the truck bounce up and down as though gravity wasn't sure what to do, the trucks failing suspension not helping in the least. Tom dealt with it all stoically, however, and had driven like a madman to get them to the village in time regardless of obstacles.

They pulled into the village in a cloud of sand and dust before stopping sharply, right on time by Chris's watch-one which he'd made sure couldn't be traced back to him or the USA should he loose it after repeated warnings. Tom turned the engine off while Chris got out and started to look around, closely followed by Webb, Aaron and Bill Stamper, the small, pale Stamper not looking at all comfortable in the heat and sunlight. It was late in the day, almost seventeen hundred hours, but the sun was still high and the temperature had barely even begun to fall towards the freezing cold of night. All of them were wearing light clothes, trousers, T-shirts, sunhats and soft, open-top shoes, while Webb and Tom were wearing shorts. Suntan cream had been liberally applied as a vital necessity and they were all careful to take their water rations when required. Added to all of their inoculations-as soldiers, they had already been inoculated against almost any disease or pest-transmitted problem they might pick up even in a country like Iraq-they were all keeping healthy and active, although all of them had to be careful not to take too much hard exercise. Tom had driven then rested while Chris drove for a while at points, but had still done the lions share of the work while the others rested in the back.

Once he got clear of the stink of burning exhaust pipes, Chris nearly doubled over and threw up his lunch at the sheer stench of the place. The villagers had no sewers so they threw their waste in the streets, creating a stink that defied description even as it burned its way into the brain for the rest of ones life, while animal dung, rotting wood, the strange smell that Chris couldn't identify but didn't like at all and a slight breeze which mingled all of it together into a rotten cloud and shoved it straight up the nostrils made him go cross-eyed as his eyes began to weep. Naked children ran around in the streets while adults wearing worn and tattered old clothes glared at the pale-skinned newcomers with open distrust and hostility. Chris couldn't blame them, since the war in '91 they'd undoubtedly been through nine kinds of Hell he couldn't even imagine with the imposition of Sanctions by the United Nations and Saddam in charge being increasingly brutal, even by his standards, to maintain his hold on power, but his feeling sympathy for them didn't extend to letting them beat him up or worse. He didn't need to be able to see the future to know that worse was on the way if they stayed here for long, so they needed to get in, find their contact and final team member and get out, fast. Webb, apparently, had seen the same things and drawn an identical conclusion.

"Alright boys, you all got some idea what were here for, so get your asses in gear and start looking. You see anyone or anything, holler. You may not get a second chance if you get it wrong, mind, so be as sure as can be before letting rip" said Webb, deliberately speaking loudly enough for the locals to hear. Knowing that they were American would either buy them a few more minutes from the villagers or start a fight faster, nobody had been quite sure. Webb being Webb, though, he'd gone for the direct approach on the basis that he could handle it if things got out of hand. This was part of the plan, Chris had to remind himself-after all, who would be so stupidly obvious if they were here in an attempt /not/ to be noticed...?

Chris decided that he just maybe wanted to die of old age rather than having his throat slit in his sleep and followed Webb's orders. The problem was he, Aaron, Bill and Webb didn't know who they were looking for in reality, they had just been told very tall, dark and unmistakeably female, give or take a few choice words. Whoever it was would be dressed like a native to the point they would unlikely be able to tell her apart, would not approach them directly to avoid drawing attention to herself of the kind they didn't want and would identify herself with only one English word, "Yes", when asked if she wanted a ride. Intelligence knew that the vast majority of Iraqi's outside of the cities and towns didn't even understand English, let alone speak it, so the decision had been made that this was an adequate "tag" for the agent. However, no-one could control chance, so Chris had discreetly crossed his fingers and hoped for the best when they were being briefed. He didn't believe in God any more, not since a single, careless individual human being had effectively wiped out his family in one terrible, impossible moment...

He scanned the groups of people he was almost confronting, looking for anything at all out of the ordinary while doing his best not to stare. The last thing that he needed was to accidentally offend some native without even realising it and have them come after him with guns, but he didn't know enough about the people to be sure of what was and was not acceptable. All things considered, that just meant that-no surprise there-he'd have to be quick. 

Aaron, Bill and Webb were doing much the same thing, but in a different way. Aaron, despite his imposing size, was somehow managing to not seem at all threatening while he almost scuttled amongst the people, glancing left and right like he knew what he was looking for and only had to see it. Bill, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the heat and humidity of the desert, was succeeding in not offending or annoying anyone because no-one would come near him and most wouldn't even look at him, deliberately stepping away in most cases.

Webb, though, was being Webb. Big, broad and loud, he was almost staring down everyone near him as though threatening them to do their worst while the expression on his face made clear that he knew worse. He almost visibly itched to start cracking heads together to get the answers he wanted, and was likely going to in short order regardless of consequences if something didn't happen which let him work off his growing bad temper soon. Chris had decided that he hated the man on the flight into Kuwait from the USA, based on no more than what he'd seen and knew about the man by then, and nothing he'd seen since had done anything to change his opinion. Considering what he was seeing now, he very much doubted anything the man could or would ever say or do would shift his opinion anywhere but downhill, ever. It went a long way to explaining why Webb was along on the mission, in fact. 

Moralto's comment about individuals in a mans army, where everyone was told, all of the time, that teamwork, teamwork, teamwork was the key, was all too true where Webb was concerned, to say the very least. The man was a temperamental loose cannon with a serious attitude problem who clearly relished his command and expected everyone to follow his orders as though he had a direct line to God and no-one else had a real military mind. Chris had served under some bad leaders who carried the rank of officer in his time in the Air Force before, but Webb was right up there with the worst of them. The only redeeming factor was that Webb also had to be very, very good at his job in reality to have reached the rank of Colonel in Delta Force.

A figure caught Chris's eye, a strangely bent woman, tall, walked with a limp as though she had a curved back from some old injury. She was standing apart from the crowds, /wasn't/ looking at any of them or the truck, and failed to stand out from anyone else in the village. Instinct told Chris that he was on to something, the same instinct that he had so successfully followed throughout his career, that kept him alive, despite getting him into trouble with his superiors on a regular basis. He'd always listened to it before, he saw no reason to stop now.

He strolled over to the woman as casually as he could, pretended to glance at her back as though assessing her state of health and physical infirmity, then smiled at her. "Want a ride?" he asked, quietly, just loudly enough to be heard, not so loudly that everyone else nearby could hear. 

He couldn't see her face, but he got the distinct impression that she momentarily smiled at him. "Yes" she replied, just as softly, in English with a noticeable American accent-put on deliberately, he would later work out. /Score/ he couldn't help but think, already imagining the expression that Webb would have on his face when he discovered that Chris had been the one to find the contact...

*

Serena Baccarin was almost impressed, which was something she hadn't expected. The young soldier had spotted her almost immediately on stepping out of the beaten-up dark-brown painted truck they'd arrived in, while his comrades almost ambled around in a daze. That was excepting the dark-haired loudmouth, of course, but there was always one, and she automatically assumed that such an individual had been sent along for his talents in areas other than common sense. She'd half expected to have to practically wave at them to get their attention, but hadn't had to do anything of the sort, which was a satisfactory result given the efforts of some individuals she'd dealt with. Now she would just have to wait and see what happened next, a good start never meant a perfect follow-through.

The young soldier put a hand around her left upper arm, being careful not to do more than make it look convincing, and gave a very gentle tug to lead her towards the truck, which she made a point of "hesitantly" responding to. The plan was for a group of American "tourists" looking, apparently, for an interpreter and maybe a bit of fun, to roll into the border village without a care in the world, grab a moderately attractive woman who apparently spoke English who was unlikely to put up a struggle and leave in a hurry, before any of the village men became angry. So far, it had gone perfectly, which meant that something was bound to go wrong in her experience.

The young soldier "helped" her into the back of the lorry, where bench seats were set into the sides and a small, closed, pale wooden box sat on the floor. The loud one was the first to join her, followed closely by the big, quiet one and the pale, slim one even as the young soldier climbed back into the cab of the truck. They were ready to go, the truck started and began to move-before it lurched sharply, then came to a dead stop, the sound of the engine dying away abruptly. The whirr of the starter motor sounded, stopped, then sounded again, continually, as Serena's sharp ears began to pick up the sounds of a growing mob approaching the truck over hard earth and soft sand, people evidently being unhappy about the apparent abduction in process... She hoped that this was going to be the only failure of the day, she really did...

*

Tom, whose expression hadn't changed at all, continued to try and start the truck again as the mob began to move towards them from the village. He didn't look or seem worried in the least, probably because he'd been in this situation, or very similar, before, and knew what to do-or so Chris presumed. Chris, for his part, was getting increasingly nervous, and he was becomingly more than a little worried that the mob was going to either wreck the truck, kill its occupants-bar the woman-or both, at the very least. He was too young to die, and had no wish to discover just how inadequate his intimate knowledge of pain was just yet, either. Worst of all, he wasn't even armed, a precaution in case they ran across anyone who they couldn't easily explain their presence to, the guns were held in the closed box in the back. So if the mob did decide to do something, all that he and Tom had available was harsh language in a language their attackers wouldn't understand and any natural gifts, such as hands, feet and head, to hand. As a Special Forces man Tom probably didn't worry about this. Chris, with no more than basic training, little experience and bad attitude to rely on, couldn't help but feel the beginnings of panic...

"Tom, talk to me..." he muttered, trying and failing to keep a tremor of fear out of his voice. He hoped that the other soldier hadn't noticed it, but Tom didn't even appear to be paying attention, concentrating on starting the truck. He replied abruptly, however, with no change of tone or manner evident.

"Sand in the works, I reckon, might need a jump-start. Nip round the back and tell the boys, would you?" said Tom, glancing briefly at Chris to make sure that he understood, apparently. Chris took a second to realise that Tom was serious that he actually get out of the truck, then he leapt out and ran around back. Webb just stared at him as he appeared, with the look on his face suggesting that he'd stepped in more pleasant things. Chris ignored the man, he-/they/ had much bigger problems than Webb's irritation at Chris's apparent inability to follow the simplest of orders, such as "Stay in the truck once we've found the operative until she says otherwise".

"Tom thinks we need a jump-start, there's a mob coming to kill us, so lets /move/!" snapped Chris, making fast "come here" motions with his hand. Aaron, not a man who was short on muscle or brains, leapt out a second later and braced himself against the back of the truck, flexing heavy muscles. Webb literally threw the reluctant Stamper out, the small man landing with a grunt, then jumped out and joined in himself, shooting Chris a look which spoke of trouble later. Chris ignored him, he was well-used to looks from officers like that. Stamper took a moment to stagger to his feet and join in, then Webb slapped the back of the truck, hard enough to cause a noticeable "crack".

"Alright, people, on three... One, two, THREE!" snarled Webb, throwing all of his considerable strength and weight into the effort, just as the others did. Survival tended to override any personal problems anyone had which prevented the job getting done, Chris had noted time after time, and the same was true here, even though the concealed weapons they were carrying would probably have been enough to hold off the mob had the worst really come to the worst. They all strained for a few endless seconds against the trucks dead weight, then it began to move, tires crunching over ground slowly but surely. Tom began trying the starter motor again, but it just whirred unhelpfully-then a cough, followed by a series of coughs sounded, before the trucks engine suddenly roared to life.

Webb vaulted into the back of the truck after taking no more than a step back with ease, Aaron simply lifting himself in with huge arms before he reached back and gave Stamper a hand, practically taking the smaller man right off of the floor with ease. Chris turned and sprinted for the cab, even as the truck started to move-a crack sounded from the cab, then something audibly clanged as it hit the metal front of the truck. Chris slowed down, wondering what was going on...

Tom put the truck in reverse and hit the gas so fast that Chris was nearly bowled right over, forcing him to leap aside as the truck went past him. This gave him an intimate portrait of the closing mob, who were throwing stones they'd gathered at the truck, one of which had cracked the drivers-side windscreen-the rest of which were now being aimed at him. He took off after the accelerating truck, which was still going backwards, at a turn of speed that would have impressed his old High School Coach, who had been of the opinion that Chris only stayed relatively fit and healthy for the girls, never for the challenge, but it barely helped. Rocks went past so close that he felt the air move, while one clipped his arm, drawing a hiss of pain and a trickle of blood as he ran for his life. If they caught him he was dead, no question existed in his mind.

The truck stopped as Tom hit the brakes and shifted to first fast, before he hit the accelerator so hard that the wheels span in the poor traction before they gripped and the truck lurched forwards, veering sharply around to the right as Tom took the fast route far away to safety. Chris threw everything into the last few meters and dove full length, just grabbing hold of the trucks tailboard in time to stop it getting too far away from him, just as a rock hit him high in the back.

He was lucky that the small stone didn't break a rib or two, as it was it blasted the air from his lungs like a Baseball bat to the stomach and the sensations which followed made him feel like he'd been kicked in the head by someone with steel-toed boots, stars and spots flickering across his vision as he almost blacked out. Worst of all, he felt his grip slip and knew that he wouldn't be able to hold on in his condition-a pair of strong hands caught his wrists in an iron grip, and pulled him inside easily, as though his weight and clothes were less than no impediment. He thumped down to the baking wooden floor, hard but not enough to bruise, and, as his vision cleared, he glanced up to see his rescuer, to thank them-and lost his voice as he found himself looking into the somewhat amused eyes of the Operative they'd been sent to meet...

/End of Chapter 2-I know, there's been no action, little bloodshed and no Umbrella/T-Virus/Conspiracy/related problems yet. Patience, this chapter and the first were set-ups for the action and difficulties which lie ahead, of which there will be LOTS. In Chapter 3 things WILL get moving, so you'll just have to wait and see what I have in store. Reviews, please? All comments welcomed/          


	3. Chapter 3

For all disclaimers: See Chapters 1 and 2.

Important note: If you don't read the explanatory notes in Chapters 1 and 2, this will not make much sense. If you already have, enjoy the story.

Chapter Three Lost Souls 

/June 6th 1996, southern Iraq/

"ARE YOU /CRAZY/!? You unbelievable /bastard/, Webb, how the /Hell/ can you call yourself a soldier when you were prepared to leave me behind to get my head ripped off by a mob like that?! Here?! In /IRAQ/?! DO I NEED TO DRAW YOU A PICTURE OF WHAT THEY'D HAVE DONE TO ME?!" shouted Chris Redfield, standing toe-to-toe with the taller, bigger Webb. He was shouting so loudly, his temper on the verge of snapping, that his cheeks were red with blood, spittle almost flying from his lips as he hit Webb with a verbal barrage. 

He knew that Webb could probably drive him into the ground like a tent peg and break every bone in his body without trying, he just didn't care. If the Delta Force Colonel tried anything at all Chris was going to make sure that, be it his last act on Earth if necessary, he was going to kick Webb's teeth down his throat just for the satisfaction of smashing that smug smile for good before he died. He doubted anyone but perhaps Tom Brown, the cold-eyed US Ranger Sergeant who seemed to hate Webb as much as he hated anyone, which was a lot, would even attempt to help him if he tried it, but that didn't matter either. He drew in a breath to continue, but Webb beat him to it.

"Shut /up/, you stupid yellow little s***, or I will personally hand you your kneecaps. I made a command decision, a level of authority I have to exercise which you clearly have less grasp of than you do of protocol in these situations, and I don't give a flying f*** what you think of it. There are six people on this mission, not one, and one is an acceptable loss, no more. If you cannot handle the fact that we are all expendable, /SOLDIER/, then you are very f****** welcome to go back to Kuwait on foot, call your mother and get her to come get you, since you obviously have no places in this mans army. Clear? Now make up your mind or /I/ will, no discussion" said Webb, his whole body tensing. 

He was ready for a fight, everyone could see it, and, although everyone wanted to see it happen, everyone but Webb and Serena didn't want it to actually happen, because there was no question in anyone's mind that Webb would smear the smaller, younger man across the landscape as spectacularly painfully as he could manage. Webb didn't know that Chris's mother was dead, nor would he ever know the nerve he hit by mentioning military regulations and Chris's parents so casually, but for a long moment, no-one would have cared.

The veins stood out on Chris's neck and forehead as his jaw dropped, as he stared unblinkingly at Webb, his fists clenched so tight that his knuckles went white as his entire body trembled with barely suppressed rage. He decided that moment that he was going to kill Webb with his bare hands, but, as always happened when he was going to do something insane, one thing stopped him. His sisters young face, long brown hair, soft brown eyes, smooth face and lips forever set in an expression of terrible loss that could never be undone, that could not stand loosing him too, ever, floated across his minds eye...

He gritted his teeth, swallowed, then spat on the ground at Webb's feet. "I don't have anything to prove to you, /at all/. Your not worth my time or the effort, so go back to doing whatever it is your doing when your alone in the dark and enjoy screwing up your own life. Mine isn't for sale" he said, then he turned and walked away, with a satisfied smirk Webb would never see.

Webb expression was indescribable, his body suddenly limp at the shock of the total lack of physical confrontation. He shook his head in disbelief, considered going after Chris just to punch him in the back of the head to get his attention, but reconsidered quickly when he saw Tom's expression. The young air force man had just earned the older US Ranger's respect with his actions, and the cold-eyed man was a considerably greater threat than Chris ever would be. Growling, Webb decided it wasn't worth his time, shot a look at Chris that spoke of serious trouble later and stalked back to the truck.

*

While the men blew off Testosterone, Serena Baccarin, bored before the fight had even started, had walked away to the small, weather-worn wooden Shepherds hut nearby, then on around the back once she was totally sure that it was empty. It took seconds, she knew this place like the back of her hand, including the places where she'd hidden all of their gear-combat gear, uniforms, guns, CQC weapons, explosives, electronic jammers and a variety of other equipment. The men had to sort out the hiding places in the "special" truck, then they'd get the gear, place it and hide it. They'd need her to be sure that they had everything, but she had a little time to get ready until then.

Thinking that, she walked over to an old well and watering trough that was empty and, the well being a little shorter than she was, ran the still-sturdy wooden bucket down to the water with a creak of old rope then carefully pulled it back up again, swinging the bucket to the edge of the well. She pulled off her headdress and veil, her long, dark-black hair spilling out, down and loose, then pulled off her dress as well, sliding it down over her shoulders to the ground with a sigh of relief, kicking it away, followed by her worn old sandals. Under it she was wearing waterproof form-fitting jet-black leggings and a tight dark half-top just covering her breasts to stop anything getting in her way. The top came off a moment later, being tossed onto the pile of clothes, and she finally felt able to relax somewhat. 

The dress, veil and headdress had been suffocating her, not to mention drenching her in sweat for every moment she wore them. Living in South America was warm, she'd long ago decided, /Africa/ was /hot/. The contact lenses, placed carefully in a case, were the last to go, revealing her brilliant sapphire blue eyes. Splashing water over her hands she leaned over the bucket and splashed it over her face as well, washing away the makeup, blinking away the drips. Soon the natural tone of her tawny skin was easily evident, so she used her hands to form a scoop, picked up some water and drank most of it, splashing the dregs on her face. To finish she picked up the bucket and upended it over her head, the cool water splashing away sweat, dust and sand with equal ease as well as cleaning out her tangled hair, washing it down over her shoulders, back and chest. She licked her lips to miss nothing, before picking up the headdress and using it as a towel.

Her own gear was hidden at the edge of the well behind a corner stone, but before she could even begin to move to retrieve it she sensed eyes on her back. Smothering a smile to keep her expression neutral, she turned around on bare feet to see who it was-Chris Redfield, standing ten feet away, blushing red as a ripe tomato as he tried not to stare at her chest. She found it harder not to smile at this, taking a long moment to check out his muscular arms and powerful frame. 

She wasn't the type to go for the overly muscular man, having 300 pounds of meat and bone crushing her in bed just wasn't appealing. Chris Redfield, though, was a lot closer to the kind of man she'd be looking for if she ever wanted a real Date, young, fit, healthy and handsome-not that she'd ever tell him that.

"What's the matter, Chris? I can't have anything you haven't seen before unless your Gay, you know?" she called, quite certain that she wouldn't be the first woman to stare, for far too long, at the young soldiers biceps, chest, face and groin. Besides which, a man like him Gay? She knew people, sometimes better than they did, after only the one meeting in many cases, she had a "knack" for these things. More to the point, she knew about types, and he was the unquestionable Heterosexual "Whoops, there go the girls" type if she hadn't taken complete and total leave of her senses-which she was utterly certain she hadn't...

His eyes travelled noticeably up, down and over her curves in a way that suggested that his imagination had fused at the sight, before he finally managed to drag his eyes up to her face. She made a point of not smiling, even though she suspected that she'd just ruined the young mans life. With her luxurious beauty, full-figured, tautly defined form and tight muscle, she was any man's fantasy made flesh. Worse, given what she did, she was the ultimate jewel in the crown, the unobtainable Goddess that no one could have. It wasn't that she couldn't make that kind of commitment, either, she just wouldn't. No one deserved her life, and she wasn't quite enough of a bitch to force it on them...

"Actually, I was trying to decide whether or not I'd died of the heat and gone to Heaven or Hell, but then you spoke and ruined the moment" replied Chris, with a perfectly straight face-before he grinned, his eyes dancing as he kept his staring at her face. "Kidding! Actually, I was trying to commit you to memory like that. That a problem?" he asked.

"Hell no, I was never shy, but do something useful while your at it. Come here and help me if your not dodging Webb?" said Serena, lifting an eyebrow as she stood hands on hips. This time she let a slight smile show, deciding that, young or not, she liked the kid. At least he had the balls to admit that he actually was staring at her, that was always a good start. Honesty was important with her, always was...

Chris winked and walked over to help as she turned and pulled out the cornerstone. Pulling a small grey case out of the hole created, she put in the combination and opened it. Inside, a disassembled snipers rifle was stored safely away from the elements. Checking that every part was accounted for, she closed and laid it aside for a moment, moving to pull out of the hole a pair of black knee-length boots, designed so that they would attach directly to her feet, a perfect fit. They also had shock absorbance capabilities and were considerably more resilient than they looked where physical damage was concerned, despite their leathery design. She slipped them on, then pulled out a sack containing her remaining clothes. 

All of her business clothes were jet-black as a habit, which included the loose halter-top she pulled out next. Pulling her hair back and out of the way, giving a stunned Chris an excellent view of her bare upper body as she moved, she slid the top on over her head. It left a streak of flesh around belly, lower back and her sides bare as well as her arms and shoulders, being held on by thin straps at the shoulders. The last was a sleeved jacket that could be sealed tight up to the neck with a fastening like Velcro but stronger along the centre, which hung loosely when not sealed. For certain missions she wore gloves and certain other gear to ensure that even skin particles couldn't be found, this simply wasn't one of those. 

The jacket, leggings and boots were all Nomex weave, fire and water proof and resistant to if not proof against most purely physical assaults. They didn't hamper her movements, though, which was more important to her than the advantages of heavier body armour. She wasn't really trained or intended to muck in with the regulars in battlefield warfare, even though she was perfectly capable of doing so, her job was to get in, do the job and get out fast. Speed was the key, and, combined with her agility, experience and training, not to mention intelligence and initiative, she rarely needed more. Besides which, more often than not if she couldn't handle any given situation with what she had she shouldn't have been sent in the first place. That just made improvisation the order of the day, though, something else she'd always excelled at, just ask the Iraqi's who'd chased her in '91...

"Er... While I'll appreciate the view until after my death, was there actually something you wanted me to do?" asked Chris, looking far more comfortable around her now she was something close to dressed, although he still looked as though someone had thrown red dye over him his cheeks were so clearly coloured even with the heat. She smiled, then pulled out a second, slightly smaller case containing her other weapons.

"Carry this? Did you kick Webb in the balls when he wasn't looking and knock him out when he fell over or just tell him he should grow up to his face?" asked Serena, picking up the closed case containing her rifle. Her disguise went into the sack, which she slung over her shoulder before standing up easily and walking back around the hut towards the truck. Chris picked up the other case and hurried after her, but almost had to jog to keep up as her long legs propelled her with an almost unearthly easy grace across the shifting sand. She didn't doubt that she could out-run, out-manoeuvre, out-fight, out-think and out-last him all at once if she had to, probably with little effort, but it didn't matter. Being exceptional at what she did was her stock in trade, every time, but it didn't make her immortal or any less dead if she failed. There really was strength in numbers, she knew it from experience, especially on a mission like this.

"I told him he should try thinking with his brain rather than his training if he wanted me to show him any respect at all. Jesus, you got enough weaponry in here?" said Chris, hefting the case in a way which made clear its weight. She just shook her head at the question. 

"Chris, life lesson for you, remember it: there's no such thing as "too much" in the form of means and ways when your doing this kind of thing. Oh, and well put with Webb, the man's worse than /I/ was back in '87... WEBB! /Wait/ for me before you do anything else!" shouted Serena, at the sight of the small Stamper and huge Bradley miserably prising up floorboard after floorboard in the hut under Webb's extremely specific, snapped orders, the look on his face making it clear he was about to bawl out the two of them for not finding the gear and weapons Serena had concealed in and around the hut yet. Serena's shout stopped him dead, though, and he looked angry when he turned to look at her...

*

After what very nearly became a scuffle, Serena and Webb called a Truce to get the job done which involved Webb, under irritated protest, following Serena's instructions to dig up and recover their gear, along with Bradley, a heavily sweating Stamper and Chris, Tom standing guard with a loaded AK-47 immediately to hand. Explosives, guns, ammunition, stealth combat gear and a lay-out of vital equipment were recovered and loaded into the truck, hidden and secured before they set off again, topping off the trucks fuel from jerry cans before they did.

Webb had planned on switching places with Chris to sit in the front with Serena when the stop and gear-up was complete, so that he could go over strategy, plans and who was really in charge with her while they made their way to the target area, two days drive away. Ignoring Webb totally beyond recognising his existence, she literally dragged Chris in with her instead, leaving a near-silent Tom to drive again, at least at first. Webb looked as though he was considering a number of solutions to this problem when it happened, the majority violent, but Serena just stared at him until he went away and didn't come back. Tom smiled at this, although Chris was so pleased to still have his head on his shoulders that he missed the brief glance the Ranger shared with Serena before the truck started up and they moved off...

/June 7th, 1996, Iraq/

00:05 Hours

"Your kidding, right?" said Chris, staring at Serena in the darkness of night, barely able to make out her dark, slim form in the dull shadows of the rocks they were concealed under. The woman, he was quite sure, could have disappeared altogether in the shadows without any effort at all, he got the impression she did most things with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of effort, but, for some reason, she had chosen to lie close to him in the cold of the dark night, both of them wrapped in their dark sleeping bags to keep warm since a fire could have been spotted miles away out in the desert as they were.

"Do I /look/ like I'm joking, Chris? Besides which, you did ask you know. So, again, you can call me Serena only, I /do not/ work for the CIA and yes, I /do/ have a much better idea of what's actually going on here than any of you. Your not cleared for any of that, though, and you don't want to be, all things considered, so relax and enjoy yourself under the stars and stop asking questions I can't answer for your own good" replied Serena, with a sigh. Staring up at the stars herself, she smiled, then looked back at Chris.

"You know, Chris, circumstances notwithstanding, with /me/ lying within arms reach most men wouldn't be complaining if they were lost in the Arctic in nothing but a fur jacket and tight trousers, you know? You could at least /try/ to show a girl a good time before grumbling about anything else, perhaps?" said Serena, raising a perfect eyebrow.

Chris felt himself blushing again-damn it, she did this to him /every/ time she /smiled/ at him... Not that he /really/ minded, her smile made his heart beat a lot faster for all the right reasons... "Serena, you might physically be within arms reach, but I know if I tried anything at all it wouldn't happen unless /you/ wanted it to. Besides which, I might as well try and bring down the moon as lay hand or lips anywhere on you and we both know it, Miss. Enigma. Can you tell me just how many people would be after me with razor blades, shotguns and more lethal implements than I know of if I even dared tell you I /know/ you're the most beautiful, sexy woman I've ever met and ever will, eh?" asked Chris, smiling broadly as he half-expected a slap for being so direct.

Serena just looked at him in silence for a long, long moment, then there was a rustle as she got out of her sleeping bag, the form-fitting leggings and loose halter top, all that she was wearing, doing very little, even in the darkness, to conceal the ripple of muscle across her slim body, the smooth, animal grace of her movements, or her evident cleavage. Chris's mouth was abruptly bone-dry, as were his lips, as she knelt in front of him, looking him straight in the eyes. He was abruptly very glad that they were sleeping in groups of two all kept at least six feet apart-supposedly-with the groups laid out in a triangle formation with ten feet between each. He was especially glad that Webb had volunteered to take the first two hour watch with Stamper, since if the loudmouth Bastard had seen what was happening he would have screamed bloody murder, probably violently intervened to stop anything even possibly happening and-at the very least-totally ruined the moment. Abruptly realising something else as well, Chris sincerely hoped that his sleeping bag was baggy enough to conceal a certain development...

"I can tell that you actually mean that, Chris, I'm just like that, so you should understand something. I may be beyond your reach in the sense that you simply can't know what it is I do, let alone who I work for and why, but things are never that simple" said Serena, running a fingertip slowly across her lips, pink tongue wetting the tip for a moment. "/But/, that doesn't mean that I can't manage casual, no-commitment sex. Besides which your young, healthy, fit and cute, why /wouldn't/ I be interested, hmm?" Serena added, licking her lips as she leaned in towards him.

Bare-chested, barefoot and on a mission quite likely to end with his death, his heart going a mile a minute, with the dark Goddess of his dreams leaning in close, almost intimately close, over him, the young Air Force soldier briefly considered leaping up and running off into the desert like a madman just to stop this from ever even possibly happening. After all, how the Hell did he know just what on Earth he might even possibly be getting into with a woman as enigmatic, as mysterious, as unbelievably beautiful as this? He thought that for all of a second before his heart gave his brain an almighty kick and it entered into his imagination just what he'd /maybe/ be missing if he didn't accept the offer... A moment later Serena had pulled him up and into a gentle embrace, her firm, soft lips pressed against his as he couldn't help shifting to move more deeply into the warm, soft feel of her fine form, his own arms sliding up and around to embrace her in return...

*

Serena Baccarin realised that it had been a mistake to even just kiss the young soldier less than a second after she had, but didn't pull away instantly, as she should have. She fought aside her own instincts, her training and the knowledge of what was to come on the basis that, just for once, maybe, just maybe, she could enjoy herself... 

That she would break Chris Redfield's heart by doing this to him crossed her mind-after all, no matter what, nothing could come of this. That she was doing worse to herself was close behind, because she wasn't heartless, and her feelings were actually easily hurt by people whom she allowed under her guard-Chris Redfield had earned that "honour" on sight, no less, somehow... That she might have to kill everyone else on the mission, a real possibility, was another problem, but she'd done worse and all of the questions were covered for, unless someone tried Hacking some /very/ secure Pentagon files.

Chris's hands, spread across her back, shifted slightly, his left sliding under her top to trace gentle patterns across flawless smooth skin-bar a few scars invisible to the touch, of course. She felt the muscles of her back tighten, but forced them to relax, an automatic response with her thanks to too many incidents and training she sometimes wanted to forget. She was so unused to intimacy that it set off alarms inside her that made her have to make a conscious effort to prevent her body from automatically flipping Chris onto his chest and probably breaking his back in the process with both hands and a well-placed knee-this was /crazy/, she realised, even as the kiss deepened, their tongues intertwining.

She knew better, she'd desired this man-/Chris/, on some level ever since she'd seen him, and she knew it, down where it counted. She was a madwoman to act on it, worse for letting it go on for any time at all. After all, if Chris /really/ knew /anything/ about her, he wouldn't touch her if it meant his life and the lives of those he cared for-worse, he'd probably kill her on sight, and she might just let him if it came to that somehow-no-one /really/ wanted to live forever, she could guarantee it. She should know...

She pulled back slowly, savouring the contact as best she could, but knowing that it had to end, that it was no more than a one-off fantasy she could never repeat. She hadn't been lying to Chris when she said that she could manage casual sex, but that wasn't the whole truth. Sex was a form of physical exercise that involved exceptional release, allowing one to gain an erotic high while becoming so relaxed that sleep was a given. It was an excellent way to pass the time and, she'd found, helped with both one's stamina and one's body-certainly, she was sure that every part of her was firmer and tighter than it would have been otherwise. Certainly, none of her lovers/boyfriends/clients had ever complained... 

She slowly became aware that both she and Chris were barely breathing, were still in a tight embrace, and that Chris's eyes were shut, not that she was doing much better. He breathed in slowly, carefully, as though afraid that something terrible would happen if he did anything else-then a slow, luxurious smile spread across his face. 

"/That/, was freaking incredible, Serena, can I just say that? If you kiss everyone like that, I'm glad none of them are here, because they'd strangle me and dump the body in a shallow ditch just to keep that for themselves" said Chris, slowly, clearly barely able to speak. He couldn't see her smile, his eyes still shut, but that also meant that, thankfully, he couldn't see the look in her eyes at his comments either.

"Thanks, now get some sleep, it'll be a long day tomorrow. Don't mention this to anyone, alright? Its our business" she replied, standing up and easily freeing herself of his embrace. That said, she walked back over to her sleeping bag, lay down in it and pulled it shut, turning so that her back was to him. She could feel his incredulous gaze on her back for hours, but didn't let it prevent her falling asleep...

/June 7th, 1996, central Iraq/

The old refinery that could barely be seen in the distance, even through the binoculars Serena Baccarin and the others were using, had been visited by war. Once a big industrial area, half-a-mile square, containing a variety of small buildings, a couple of warehouses and a big machinery complex in the centre, all made of a combination of steel, grey stone and red brick, it was now a deserted, rusting ruin, half-collapsed ceilings, walls and buildings evident all over. 

Not one roof was left intact, only part of one in the main warehouse, which was cut in half by a huge crater in the centre apparently created by an Earthquake Bomb designed to wreck the centre of the complex. Scattered brick, shards of stone and the shrapnel released by shredded steel lay all about as though a battle had been fought here and mans design had lost to natures fury, but the huge crater in the centre of the complex gave the lie to that. Only technology created so specified an area of damage in so particular an area, and then only on purpose except in very particular instances, of which this was not one. 

The whole area of the complex which was left standing wasn't safe, that fact Serena Baccarin was aware of with crystal clarity since she'd been there before to map the place out and check how secure it was should the worst come to the worst, which was a real possibility given the security level of the facility they were to break into and destroy after retrieving a sample of the Virus being worked on in it. If it came to it the Republican Guard would be after them, a simple fact, and if somehow taken alive they would be taken to a prison where all six storeys went deeper into the ground and interrogated until there was nothing left to know, however long it took, whatever was necessary. 

The others didn't need to know it, but she was under orders to ensure that this didn't happen by whatever means necessary from a level of authority none of them knew existed. She had a bullet marked out for every single one of them, and would use it without a moments hesitation-even though she might well miss Chris. /But/, that was the whole point of what she did. An Assassin's life was never meant to be a happy one, and she'd earned the Call-Sign "Reaper" through belief and action a long time ago...

"/That's/ it? Our way in to this Ultra-Secure facility? It looks like it's been bombed and chance failed to finish the job, because if its safe in there then I assassinated JFK. How the Hell does a deserted, ruined wreck of an old refinery figure in to anything were here to do, anyway?" asked Webb, glaring at Serena with a look that spoke of some level of contempt at choosing such an entrance. No doubt he would have preferred to have walked in the front door with an M-16 blazing in each hand while everyone else acted as human shields so that he could get the job done, she couldn't help but think...

"Its useful, Webb, /because/ of "chance", as you so charmingly put it. The facility is secure above ground to the point its my professional opinion that a top-of-the-line CIA Deep Cover Black Ops team couldn't get in without being hit, and an air-drop is suicide because there are no secure vertical approaches and I'll put blood on a bet that the area of the facility we need to reach is secure underground in any case. Everything needs power and access, though, in an emergency and "just in case", and Hussein is a /really/ paranoid bastard, which you'd know if you'd paid any attention, so when you need two tunnels you can expect there to be three. I /did/ pay attention, for a very good reason. The refinery is where the auxiliary escape route comes out, underground, before leading to a concealed chopper for evacuation purposes. If your careful, its also a useful way /in/. Do I need to draw you a picture, or are you following me so far?" said Serena, with a cool smile at Webb's expression.

"I'm a professional, I think for myself and I have some initiative, I'll thank you for remembering, Miss. Enigma-or Serena, if you prefer. Yes, I can follow you. You know where the escape tunnel is, have a way for us to get into and along it undetected, and from there on in need our help to make it further, which is /why/ were damned well here. Understood, so what now? We can't just walk in there and expect there to be no guards, hidden or not" asked Webb, his face and manner that of a cool professional assessing the situation and mission objectives as presented to him, his eyes angry at Serena's "usurpation" of his authority-at least as he saw it. 

The fact that, on this mission, she had been assigned field authority if she chose to exercise it, something he should have been well aware of-and probably was-was something she decided to overlook for the minute. Webb wasn't the type to react well to /anything/ unless it involved either excessive physical violence or large amounts of money, from what she'd seen and knew of him.

"The suits we have packed are what we in the profession call "Blinders", while their on you can't be "seen" by any electronic surveillance system we know of, you don't need to know the details of how. Hoods, gloves and boots, always wear the goggles too because they'll prevent any shadowing or flashes of light while cloaking your eyes. The plan is that the six of us go in there, secure what we need and rig the place before getting out alive and intact by any means necessary. Anyone incapable of understanding that should ask any questions /now/, there won't be a later" said Serena, raising her voice so that all of the five men standing near could hear her. 

Stamper spoke up, his voice quiet with a trace of nerves evident. "Erm, pardon me for being the slow one here, but... How do we get out once we've gone in, done the things in question and got out? We can't use the truck or walk, you know?" he said, with a nervous laugh. Everyone stared at him for several long moments before looking back at the ruined refinery. 

"Chris, as the resident Pilot and youngest present, you tell me and I'll say if your right: how are we going to get out of this mess, do you think?" said Serena, glancing at Chris with a brief smile. It wasn't forced or the result of deep, dark fantasies she was slightly surprised to find, she actually wanted the young Air Force man to like her... Was that worrying or not? She couldn't quite make up her mind...

Chris just smiled back at her, not bothering to even attempt to care about the dark look Webb shot him-Webb undoubtedly believing that personal relationships were a real danger where the success of the mission was concerned, they were both sure. "One of two, if you ask me: One, we nick the Evac halo and I fly us out so fast it hurts, or, Two, we run off into the mountains and are Extracted by other means, probably to a ship off the coast. Am I right, Serena?" he asked, with an expression that told he knew he was. 

She had to give the man credit for having a brain in his head-why she hadn't asked Webb, although he likely knew the answer regardless-but his getting cocky wasn't something she needed right before mission start. She needed him calm and focused, so she needed to think of a way to slow him down.

"Your half right, Redfield, but that also makes you half wrong. The Kurds are the only thing north of here, and the Border Guards are between us and them. I'd make it out, none of you would, you'd be dust in the wind blowing away to the other end of the Earth before you even knew who shot you. At least we stand a chance if we take the chopper. For one thing I can fly it if your vapour, Chris, and believe me there are /no/ guarantees where were going that you'll get out alive. Besides which, hands up who here thinks their not really expendable? We mess this up, Uncle Sam will leave us here to rot and, if I know anything of these things, saturation bomb the whole area with high explosives and incendiaries just to be sure. Success here is more important than survival, and I need /all/ of you to understand that before we go another step, clear?" stated Serena, using a tone of voice that made very, very clear that argument was not only pointless but would be counterproductive. As in, she would end any argument very quickly should someone disagree with her to allow them to get on with the mission.

Heads slowly nodded, Webb and Chris's last of all. Webb wore a thoughtful expression which she suspected meant he didn't agree with her but understood that necessity was a fact in this case. She didn't doubt that she'd have trouble from that corner later, nor did she doubt that he'd do whatever it took to survive regardless of the safety and health of any of them. Chris's expression made it clear that he wasn't happy with what she'd said, at all, but he wasn't going to argue with her in areas where she was an authority. He deferred to her knowledge and experience, in other words. Good, that was the way these things /should/ be done, yet so rarely were...

*

They drove the truck some way further before simply abandoning it, concealed from the ruined refinery by several sand dunes and over a mile of distance. Serena made sure that there was nothing left to mark their passing, much to Webb's irritation since he was sure that he was perfectly capable, then they shouldered their gear in packs and took off on foot. Despite the overwhelming, oppressive heat beating down on them, the numbingly bright sunlight from a cloudless sky and the fact that just moving seemed to make them sweat a pint, they all made it into the ruins with no complaints, even the drenched Stamper, who seemed to be barely able to walk in a straight line under his gear despite the fact they barely had to walk for half an hour.

The moment they reached the shadows cast by the ruins, which shaded them from the sun enough to significantly lessen the painful glare of the sun and so reduce the temperature a little, although all of the humidity was still very obvious, Serena didn't need her sharp ears to hear audible sighs of relief-from everyone but Webb, of course. She was helped by her dark skin and superior fitness level, not to mention an inability to give in to /anything/ even by choice that only augmented her cast-iron will and a solid rock constitution that had seen her through far worse than she wanted to casually remember. But, although her mother came from South America, her daughter had never been there except briefly on missions that had never officially occurred in any records. She had the natural resistance to heat her genes gave her and what she'd built up herself in the end, and this meant that she was feeling the heat herself-not that /she'd/ ever admit it. Besides which, she knew with great accuracy just how much punishment her mind and body could take...

"Alright, boys and girl, now were here you know the drill. Bags down, kit up, lock and load, check and check then check again to be beyond sure you ain't missing nothing. Chris, Tom, secure the area, Aaron, Bill, set it up and lay it out, Ms. Enigma-do whatever the Hell it is you do. I'm command, focus on my position and await orders once done. Okay, snap to it all!" ordered Webb, even as those around him went for gear and weapons to prepare.

Aaron pulled out a Combat Shotgun, a huge, heavy version which fired fully automatic and single round, loaded it and added a Desert Eagle with a spare Bandolier of shells. Stamper pulled out a Glock 45. and joined Aaron laying out gear and guns. Tom pulled out his AK-47, a heavy Magnum pistol most people would have considered their main weapon, gleaming spiked steel Knuckledusters and a wicked 9-inch Hunting knife which he sheathed on his left upper leg before stalking off to scout out the nearby ruins until he was sure they were safe. Webb pulled out an M-16, made a great show of loading it and chambering a round, pointedly taking a spare clip, then added a Desert Eagle almost as an afterthought, holstering it at his left hip. Chris pulled out his main weapon, a Desert Eagle, holstered his backup at the base of his spine, a 9MM Smith and Wesson, then moved out to secure the surrounding area of desert-while keeping a careful eye on Serena, out of curiosity as much as anything. It turned out to be a wise decision.

The first thing she pulled out of her main weapons pack was combat webbing, designed specifically so that it would merge with her "uniform", if it could be called that, as dark a black as the rest of it. Pulling it on over her shoulders and fastening it over her chest, she proceeded to pack it with a variety of gear, most of which Chris couldn't even have begun to guess the purpose of. A Magnum mini-pistol was concealed in a hidden holster strapped between her breasts, two black-handled combat knives with serrated blades were strapped to her forearms, one to each, while a double holster he'd never seen anything like before sat at the base of her back, holding two Smith and Wesson 9MM pistols in a "V" design, the guns forming the rising arms of the "V", the holster the base. All of her firearms were darkly designed and didn't gleam even in the blinding desert sunlight, but the design was strange for all of them in another way, one Chris couldn't quite put his finger on.

Oddest of all, though, was the rifle she proceeded to assemble. As long as any military issue rifle Chris had ever seen, that was where any similarity ended. So darkly designed that it failed to stand out against Serena's uniform, the rifle, if it was one, was broader and thicker then any normal rifle would ever be. The muzzle ended apparently normally, but was surrounded by a broad flap of metal which looked almost like someone had draped a circular carpet over the end of the muzzle at the front of the rifle. An odd switch was evident by the stock on the back of the gun, just ahead of where the trigger was housed, inside the butt itself, and an obvious Sniper sight glowed with a deep, luminous green for a moment before Serena apparently deactivated it. There was no evident magazine or safety catch, that he could see at least. 

Despite the evidently contemporary, if slightly modified, design, Chris was sure that he was looking at something that most marksmen-and women-in any army would openly drool over. Quite possibly a weapon that didn't officially exist just yet...

Weapons ready, Serena slung her rifle shoulder to hip across her back, pulled out both her pistols, checked that they were fully loaded and went off after Tom. None of those who stayed outside the ruins saw either of the two who went inside for a long while after that...

*

Concrete floors inside what was left of the ruined structure had been shattered by shells and bomb blasts years ago, making for treacherous footing. Worse, shards of metal, pipes, pieces of jagged brick and stone and the remains of a variety of structures made of metal and plastic rose all about as though they were the hands and arms of the damned reaching up and out of Hell in imploring desperation. With no light but filtered sunlight coming in dimly through breaches in concrete and stone walls, brick structures and torn metal roofs, all electricity long gone from this place, it was hard to see anything at all-but, in reality, that just made it a great deal like some of the more pleasant Hellholes she'd spent time in over the years. Hours, days, even weeks sometimes, come to think of it...

"Serena..." came Tom's deep voice from just ahead and around a corner, what she'd been waiting for. She strode forwards carefully, looking where she stepped with care, then firmly grasped the wrist and forearm Tom extended to her in the greeting of old comrades. She smiled: not that anyone would ever hear her admit it, but sometimes it was good to see a genuinely friendly face on these missions once in a while...

Tom "Iceman" Brown smiled right back at her, his "handshake" firm and strong as hers. "Hello there, Assassin, kill anyone important lately?" he asked, his naturally cool expression thawing somewhat thanks to the fact that he had finally managed to get her alone with him so that they could talk.

"Oh, you know, Chilly, just the usual, couple of annoying Congressmen, young Senator the President didn't like, the fat man who won't get a job but who always manages to put on weight... Did I mention that it's good to see you again, Tom?" replied Serena, holding Toms arm a moment longer than necessary to savour the simple human contact.

"I got that impression when you didn't give me one of your Patented "Guaranteed to kill you" looks when we first met this time this time around, Ser. Good to hear you say the words, though. Before we get on to business, though, you mind telling me what your up to with the boy? I've seen the way he looks at you, but I've seen the way /you/ look at /him/, too. He's too young and soft to handle you, Ser, whether or not he knows it, and we both know he'd be /way/ out of his League even if you did let it go somewhere. I think he's good people with a hard life, so I don't want to see you mess him up, okay?" said Tom, being as direct as he dared with the coldly lethal individual he was talking too.

Serena raised an amused eyebrow at Tom's reaction to her flirtation with the young soldier, Chris Redfield. Tom didn't have a wife, had rarely ever had a steady girlfriend and was quite possibly the worst source of life advice she could easily come up with, yet he was almost adopting a paternal attitude toward a man he barely knew at the ripe old age of thirty-four, only thirteen years older than Chris himself. She didn't know what Tom was trying to do by doing so, but, knowing him, there was a good reason that even he couldn't have quite put his finger on if asked. One of the things which made Tom such an effective soldier was the very fact that he, almost subconsciously, had a talent for picking up on things which most people would never even know they'd missed and acting on them in a way which always had a beneficial effect, somehow or other...

"He's old enough to Vote, drink and drive a car, he's had a few girlfriends or I'm a Serial Killer with a sideline in Genocide using Nuclear weapons, he's a successful soldier in the US Air force. I think he's old enough to take care of himself and make his own decisions, Tom, and its up to him if he gets involved with "Lady Death" here, thank you very much-/what/ was that?" snapped Serena, her head whipping around at the sudden sense that something was wrong, a moment before her ears told her she's heard a scraping sound from somewhere deep inside the old ruin.

Tom clicked off the safety on his AK-47 without answering and took off towards the sound with a nod, fast, silent and stealthy as a shadow in the dark, not leaving any trace but footprints. Serena drew both of her pistols and followed him with the impossible speed and grace of a Great Hunting Cat that was her trademark, being right behind him all of the way, so close that she'd passed him before he even realised she was there when they stopped. When she didn't want to be detected no one saw her, what she did needed no more explanation.

They were over the centre area of the ruined facility, not quite the exact centre of course, where a cluster of bent copper and steel pipes, the ragged remains of a steel walkway and a variety of wrecked machinery lay all about, falling onto a cracked and beaten concrete floor with metal shards scattered all around. Serena knew it was where the entrance to the escape tunnel was concealed beneath a seemingly damaged old hatch cover. Tom didn't, but that didn't matter at the moment. What /did/ matter was the six dark-green uniformed Iraqi men, all with either dark beards or moustaches, wearing black berets, their uniforms carrying the insignia of Saddam's elite Republican Guard...

Each man carried an AK-47, pistol and combat knife, Serena noted. The way they moved and glanced around betrayed a combination of nerves and boredom-oddly, as though they were worried about something, but didn't believe that it could affect them here-but they were Veterans, too. Eyes were all about, checking the scenery again and again, fingers were on triggers, safeties were off, muscles and nerves bunched, ready for action. These men weren't really expecting trouble, but, if it came, were primed and ready for it and knew what to do. /Wonderful/, she couldn't help but think, just what she needed before a Covert insertion mission, more trouble from guards who had no right to be out here in the supposed back of beyond...

It didn't matter, they had to be dealt with. She caught Tom's eye, gestured for him to go left while she went right, then mimed a knife across the throat to signify silence. He nodded in understanding, then faded into the darkness like a Ghost. She made her way down a weak stairwell, scaled a battered brick and concrete wall and let herself fall down the last five feet, landing without hearing even the slightest sound of her own impact, as she would expect from herself. That done, she pulled clear and concealed her rifle, pulled both her knives and stepped up into the shadows a small spurt of speed away from the men. Glimpsing Tom ready across the other side of the area, she breathed in deeply-then bolted out.

She covered five feet in less time than either of the two guards could have imagined, sliced the blades of her knives, led by the points, across their throats, finishing by reversing both weapons into the men's hearts then ripping both clear before either had even realised he was dead. A quick pivot, a toss of the left-hand knife so that she was holding the blade and she hurled it with easy, pin-point accuracy, the blade tearing open the throat and carrying on through with such force that torn, ruined flesh and muscle had barely even begun to gout blood before the knife fell to the floor with a dull thump.

Before the other three even registered what had happened, Tom came out of nowhere and slid his knife between ones ribs into the heart from behind before snapping his neck with a vicious blow from his Knuckledusters. The second one was dead before he hit the floor as a vicious straight-arm punch from Tom and his Knuckledusters simply carved in the front of his skull and punched bone back into his brain. The last man had the initiative to go for his weapon, but even as he began to raise it to aim Tom jumped forwards and rammed the knife into his stomach, ripping it out just under his breastbone. Disembowelled, the man fell to the ground helpless, his guts in his hands-a moment before Tom almost decapitated him with his knife. He looked up, saw Serena and gave a nod to signify it was all over, in something less than a minute of brutal murder.

Serena checked the bodies as a matter of course, to see if any of them were carrying anything useful-oddly enough, none of them were carrying radios-when she found something odd hung around the neck of the senior man present, a Lieutenant. A Pass-Card for a computerised lock, the kind one would have expected to only find /inside/ the facility, if anywhere at all, since such things cost serious money to install on a large scale. Saddam didn't really have that much to throw away on vanity projects these days, after all... What was worse, though, was the symbol on the card, a symbol you couldn't live in America and /not/ recognise. 

Red and white strips, several flat outer edges signifying one thing-/Umbrella/, the monster corporation which supposedly made all of its money from medicine, drugs, research and a whole list of other legitimate products too numerous to lightly cover. Every home in America contained its products-Hell, /she/ owned an alarm clock designed to look exactly like a raised one that always kept perfect time-and very few people cared or knew that their real profits came from Arms Dealing, selling Drugs and corporate secrets on the Black Market and very illegal genetic experiments, to name only a few things she'd heard. 

By rights Umbrella Corporation should have been investigated by every legal body in the land and shut down years if not decades ago, this was /fact/, but no-one got to where Umbrella was without making connections at every level that mattered, the more the healthier, and she had heard unsubstantiated reports that Umbrella owned Senators, Congressmen, Judges, Agents in every Agency and people who worked at more Government and Private bodies than bore thinking about. There were strong hints coming into the ETC that, in fact, it was likely Umbrella already had its claws in the man tipped by those who knew as the next President, the son of a previous one who had proved far more receptive to the advances of big corporations... But none of that gave her any clues as to what their symbol would be doing on an access card hanging around the neck of a low-ranking officer of the Republican Guard in Iraq...

"Serena? Find something?" asked Tom, striding over to see her having cleaned his weapons on the uniform of one of the dead guards. He'd never been shy about doing whatever it took to keep his equipment functional, as she recalled. She expertly palmed the card and hid it in a jacket pocket before he could even glimpse it, then cleaned her own knives on a dead Iraqi and sheathed them.

"You /could/ say that, Tom..." she replied, not quite sure herself...                      

/End of Chapter 3-Sorry it's a little long, but I wanted to establish certain things here ready for what happens later. Things are only going to get worse from here on in now Umbrella has reared its head, so get ready... Feedback, please?/


	4. Chapter 4

For all Disclaimers: See Chapters One and Two.

Note: See Chapter One for brief of the main story idea, this will unlikely make much sense if you don't.

CHAPTER FOUR Lost Souls 

/June 7th, 1996, central Iraq/

Webb's expression, for the second time in two days, was simply indescribable. However, the reason this time was far more simple disbelief than shock, even though a definite combination of the two had hit him for six. An initial inability to absorb the fact that he had been called down into the ruined refinery complex to find that he was being shown six dead Iraqi Republican Guard soldiers, killed without a shot being fired, hadn't helped. 

Worse, though, had been the fact that they were guarding the supposedly secret emergency exit from the facility, where no one should have been as a simple matter of fact given all of the intelligence they had. That one even had Serena wondering just what they were missing, which immediately put her on edge since lacking information always meant surprises of the worst kind, but in this case there seemed to be little they could do about it.

"Well, we could just leave them here to rot? No radios means they weren't checking in with anyone, we've seen neither hide nor hair of patrols or possible reinforcements so no-ones looking for them and their dead, so they won't be complaining" said Tom, voicing his opinion with a tone of voice that suggested he simply didn't care one way or another. Serena simply didn't question whether or not he was serious, she knew he was. He hadn't gained the call-sign "Iceman" by being bothered by little things like how many people he had to kill to get the job done. He would have poured acid over the bodies and stamped the bones into a fine powder without a second thought just to get rid of any evidence-just like her, come to think of it... Although she was more partial to making sure by throwing remains into a furnace, if available.

"Sergeant, shut up unless you have a useful suggestion to make, or you will be the one digging the grave with your bare hands... Alright, we drag them out of sight and leave them to rot, just the three of us, no-one else knows about this. Clear?" ordered Webb, shooting sharp looks at Serena, who looked as though she'd done worse on an average day and couldn't even begin to imagine what the fuss was about, and Tom, who simply stared back with an expression that made Webb break eye contact quick. Both elected to ignore the fact that Webb had insinuated that Tom was in incapable idiot then hijacked his idea as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, also.

It took them mere minutes to conceal the bodies in shadows and under a scattering of debris, then they returned to the desert ground where Chris, Aaron and Stamper were all waiting patiently, Chris noticeably less than the others. Chris tried to catch Serena's eye, but he would have had more luck pinning down the wind. After a minutes brief explaining of the fact that there had been a problem with the emergency exit which was now solved, Webb made a point of ordering everyone to retire to their respective positions as darkness fell again, with extraordinary checks to be made concerning gear and weapons for dawn on the 8th. Serena deliberately avoided Chris and she knew Tom wouldn't say a word, so she felt quite sure that, as she let the world slip away from her one last time, tomorrow, one way or another, all of the questions they all had would be answered...

/June 8th, 1996, central Iraq/

While under them they were only wearing dark-brown Desert boots, light brown shirt and trousers, it still seemed very, very hot, Chris noted as he slowly melted. The dull grey-black suits resembled Hazmat gear, he couldn't help but think, even though with only the goggles over your eyes for visibility and whatever the suit was made of hampering your breathing, he felt almost as though he was inside a boiler suit crossed with an oven in reality. Upper half and lower half tight suits covered arms, legs, torso and groin, while a hood attached to the upper half covered the head, a full-face mask leaving only openings for the broad, round "skiing goggles" that were tinted to prevent anyone seeing in and a breathing patch which filtered air over the mouth. Hard boots covered the feet and lower legs, but weighed enough that he almost had to concentrate to move when he wasn't walking deliberately or else risk going head over heels.

Coms set in the mouth and ear sections of the hood and mask allowed them to communicate securely, but his peripheral vision was ruined and if someone managed to sneak up behind him he was dead, so this didn't really seem helpful to him somehow. However, Serena was wearing one too and acted as though it was the most natural thing in the world, so it was obvious she had experience with these things. She was still around after who knew how long doing worse things than he could easily imagine, he was quite sure. Therefore, if she could manage, he could manage. 

However, as it turned out, they never needed the suits.

"Jesus H. Christ!" was the first thing Webb said when they opened the Emergency Exit, which he was first through of course-Chris would give Webb that, he was arrogant as Hell but no coward. Why wasn't immediately apparent, since he stopped dead in the doorway when it was opened, no-one being able to see past him-until Tom took the initiative and shoved him out of the way, then stopped and stared himself. 

However, with a solid rock Constitution and a streak of steel for a backbone that would break before it would ever bend, added to the fact that he'd long ago seen too much death in his life, it was only a moment longer before he stepped forwards into the interior and everyone else got a look at what he'd seen. At that point, Chris would later recall, how he failed to throw up was something he would never understand.

Inside, a passageway formed of grey steel plate walls, metal grates for ceiling and floor, led off into the far distance. Brilliantly bright sheer white electric lights illuminated everything as though shadows were to banished from every corner of the facility as a matter of fact, running in a straight line along the ceiling, while a computer port glowed, alert and green-screen signifying Security Passage with large bloody-red words. None of that registered on any of them any more than peripherally, however, what lay on the floor in front of them was what mattered.

A man, clearly not of Middle Eastern origin given his pale skin and light blond hair, was sprawled on his back in front of them, blood still pooling under his head. He wore a white lab coat and light-green Surgical scrubs, wire-rim glasses being sat askew on his head. He had nearly been disembowelled by something which had apparently tried to bite his stomach out, blood soaking his trousers and shoes, lining the route he had taken from within the facility to get to the door, and his left arm appeared to have been severely lacerated just above the elbow, the lower arm very nearly having been severed. A blood-drenched Key card lay futilely on the floor by his head, evidently useless in his attempt to escape, and only one last thing was obvious-a small pistol, a six-shot effort strictly intended to be used on rampaging humans or as a warning when someone was in trouble, not on anything bigger. Clearly, it hadn't helped him here.

Serena was the first to go near the body, automatically analysing what there was to be seen, sensed and understood. Single fatal gunshot wound to the head, point of impact, internal-he'd committed suicide, an odd decision given the state of health he'd been in. Loss of blood-mortal, how he'd gotten to his feet and walked around with those kind of injuries was beyond her by itself. She'd seen people walk around missing limbs and organs in battle shock before they realised that they were dead, seen people shrug off several mortal wounds just to live long enough to see the mission accomplished, seen a man fall off of a mountaintop and run away from the fall alive and unhurt, seen people do impossible, unimaginable things and act as though they were nothing later. 

She'd seen and done things which were impossible to imagine and supposedly literally impossible herself to get the job done, but she'd never heard of anyone being up and around with injuries which would have dropped anyone she knew dead in seconds in any case. The pain that would have resulted from the mans injuries alone would have incapacitated "Killer" Cain himself, if she was any judge, so only one assumption was a real possibility. The man had been driven to a point beyond human understanding to attempt to escape something awful deep inside the complex, to the point that combined Willpower and desperation, possibly added to fear, had forced him to move and keep moving even with several mortal injuries. He'd killed himself to be sure that whatever had gotten to him once wouldn't get to finish the job itself, presumably. Just what, she couldn't help but wonder, had the poor bloody fools gone and done in there?

"He killed himself to escape whatever was after him rather than just letting himself die from injuries which should have dropped him in seconds regardless of circumstances. Worse than that, these chest wounds weren't caused by anything human and I've seen a sword do less damage to a man's arm than that. Guns empty, so he shot at whatever got him but didn't stop it, I'd say he didn't even slow it down. This is very bad, Webb, whatever they were working on in there is either loose, or whatever they had in the way of Security has failed and they've got some_one_ rather than some_thing_ running around with weaponry I don't want to think about attached. Ideas?" asked Serena, tossing away the dead mans gun as she turned to face Webb, raising an eyebrow.

"I can tell I'm really going to regret having got out of bed this week... Alright, listen up boys and woman, this has just become simple. This was a Covert Snatch and Run mission, it is now Survival Horror. People are dead and dying, under attack from nobody knows what, inside a complex we have little idea of the layout of and no idea of staff or guard numbers. We have to go into that complex regardless, complete our mission and get out alive, how is up to you as long as you do your part. On that basis, we will now work like this" said Webb, glancing at everyone in turn before settling briefly on Chris with a warning glare.

"Serena and Chris will work together to get Stamper to the lab where the samples are being held, Aaron, Tom and I will supply cover and a distraction as necessary. If you find _anything_ odd or unusual or aren't sure what's going on, call it in, you may not get a second chance. Rules of Engagement are simple: this place is now a part of Hell if whatever they were working on has gotten loose given what we all know, so take no chances and shoot to kill if you don't recognise the target. Double-check everything, do not take chances unless you have no choice and remember that people you will run across in here will shoot back in some cases, so fire _first_. Apart from that, forget the suits, we don't need them if security is cut out of the equation. Anyone who believes in God, pray now or "Forever hold your peace"" said Webb, snapping out orders quickly and precisely like the experienced soldier he was. Something Serena had to remind herself of more often than not when he spoke rather than doing his job...

"Works for me, someone going to take his Keycard? You always need access to places you can't reach at the last moment in this job, so if he worked here it ought to help" said Tom, raising an eyebrow as he shrugged out of his suit. Serena seemed to merely step out of hers before she picked up the Keycard and slipped it into a pocket, cleaning it on an unstained patch of the dead Scientists scrubs first. Webb glanced at her for a moment, then shrugged and gestured Aaron and Tom over to his position.

Serena glanced at Chris to get his attention, then made a movement that had him trotting over to her. Stamper, sweating and nervous, edged closer, but they both ignored him. Chris glanced at her-she couldn't help but notice the way sweat rolled down his bare forearms and face, enhancing his good looks and helping to define his toned, hard muscles-then muttered in a low voice "Serena, don't take this the wrong way, but were not all going to be coming back out of here, are we?"

She glanced at him sharply, for an instant not sure what he meant, then realised that he just meant that they were walking into a nightmare and they all knew it. People died on missions all the time, but he "had a feeling" about this one... There wasn't really anything she could say to that, so she shrugged. 

"People die all the time Chris, in their sleep, by being shot, via an accident too bizarre to be true and because of a series of circumstances that Machiavelli himself could not have constructed. How isn't as important as why or when, while the most important thing of all is to have the best reason you can. Forget dying like a man, as long as you know your doing the right thing you can die with dignity and grace on your knees begging for your life after suffering every abomination the human mind can conjure. I know that I will, so keep that in mind" said Serena, checking her weapons as she spoke.

Chris stared at her for a moment, then shook his head slowly back and forth. "Serena, it must be nice to have such complete, unquestioning faith in something, but my parents died when I was a boy in the most senseless act you can imagine. At that point I stopped believing in anything but the need for survival to the next day to ensure that, somehow, I am not actually dead. I don't believe in any God or any Political system, nor do I have an idol who I want to be when I grow up any longer. There are people I like and dislike, that's about it. Remember that-and I like you, just so were clear, "Miss Enigma". I think you may well have done things I can't even imagine just because you were told to too people and other things, but you had your reasons. Down where it counts, your really a good person twisted into a bad place. Am I wrong, hmm?" asked Chris.

Serena paused for a few seconds before answering him, then her reply was thoughtful, considered. "You know the worst thing about all of this, Chris? Really? I don't /remember/ what I was like before I started doing all this in reality..." Serena replied, slowly.

"Boyfriend and Girlfriend, if your finished with the intimate chat about your love lives and the state of the world today, can we get a move on /please/?! Time is wearing on and I, for one, want to be home /before/ Christmas!" snapped Webb, his tone of voice indicating his frustration even if his words hadn't. Serena briefly considered all of the ways she could make him suffer before she made him shut up forever, but stopped when she reached fifty after a few seconds recollection. Sick as it sounded, once upon a time she would have, probably, thrown up at even the thought of entertaining such ideas...

*

The steady march down the passageway, following the trail of blood left by the dead Scientist which was already drying in places, smears on the walls where he'd apparently paused to hold himself upright momentarily or slipped, didn't take long. In fact, Serena calculated, moving at the speed of their slowest team member-Stamper, of course-they took five minutes twenty seconds. However, that was the only good news.

A secure door barred their way into the main complex, only accessible by a complex combination lock added to Key-card clearance-or at least this was the case, once. What was left of the three inch thick reinforced steel door now had been smashed halfway out of the door grooves, the upper hinge having been torn right out of the wall, hard steel being buckled, bent and even torn in places, holes which a fist would fit through being dangerously evident. Something had tried, very hard, to rip through the steel door while it was closing, and had very nearly succeeded. That it hadn't seemed more likely the result of distraction than anything else given the horrendous damage inflicted.

Through the doors remains flickering lights could be seen, the complex lighting system clearly having been damaged in this area by whatever had mangled the door. The bright flickers revealed streaks of blood coating walls and door, both sides, what Serena could identify as bullet casings littering the floor near and all about the door-and a buckled AK-47 abandoned in the hallway leading away to the left which looked as though it had been chewed.

The door Key-card scanner read: 

:TERMINAL MALFUNCTION

:SYSTEM DAMAGE-PROGRAM CORRUPTION

:FAILSAFE ACTIVATED

:ACCESS DENIED.

Bloody fingerprints were evident on the keypad on the complex side of the door, and Serena guessed that the Scientist had escaped by Overriding the Emergency Lockdown that was in place somehow. It suggested that he had been senior personnel, since lower reach staff in a operation like this were always classified as "Expendable" should everything go to Hell, and that made her feel somewhat better, since she'd been the one to take his Key-card. However, she most certainly did not want to walk in there of her own free will regardless-the problem was, she'd surrendered that choice by accepting this mission...

Webb took a look through the door along with the rest of them, but his expression didn't change beyond showing mild distaste. They all deserved it because they weren't him, she couldn't help but suspect he was thinking. Colonel Mickey Webb had only one priority, his own survival. Anything that he could seize, steal or, somehow, earn that made his life easier was all that he cared about, she knew the type.

"Bloody Hell...okay, Aaron, Tom, Chris, with me, lets put some muscle into shifting this thing. Watch the blood for Gods sake, the last thing we need is some idiot knocking himself unconscious by slipping on it, or worse. Serena, kill the doors power if you can, Stamper just stand out of the way... Alright, on three...one, two, THREE!" snapped Webb, throwing his weight, shoulder first, against the side of the door holding the lock. Nothing happened at first, but adding the combined weight of the other three men almost immediately began to have an effect.

The battered door creaked, groaned and started to shift, but the lock was bent, not broken, and held. The four men applied more pressure even as Serena partially dismantled the terminal, pulling out wires with a small pair of pliers and using wire cutters to gain access to the machines inner workings after prising off the facing. She worked through the most likely set-up in her mind, based on her electronic warfare and computer training, paused a moment-then touched together two specific wire ends. A sharp electric snap echoed, a clunk sounded from the door-and all four men fell through the suddenly open door on top of each other with grunts and "Oof's", Webb being at the bottom, Chris being squashed beneath Aaron even while he was pinned atop Webb. The door now read :ACCESS GRANTED Serena absently noticed...

Chris worked his way free of the crush by simply heaving until he broke free enough to get a foot on the ground-a wet snap echoed around. Everyone's heads snapped up-everyone but Chris and Serena's, Serena's because her ears were only a part of her ability to perceive the whole, Chris because he instinctively knew what he'd stepped in as he looked down, the same time Serena did.

The pale remains of an Iraqi man in dark green Republican Guard uniform lay there, soaked in blood and gore from his left arm, ripped clean off at the mid upper arm, and chest, which was no more than a dark, raw red cavity surrounded by splintered shards of white bone, once the man's ribs. His arms were forever frozen in a flailing motion, as though he had been frenziedly fighting off whatever had been coming at him with his lacerated bare hands, and his face was a rictus of mortal terror that chilled the blood to even see-Serena didn't doubt for a second that the man had died of fright, most likely /before/ his injuries would have killed him. Chris had just discovered the man the worst way possible, though-his right foot had smashed right through the corpses floating ribs, gone on through his chest to finish against his backbone...

Chris simply paused a moment, then, very slowly, lifted his foot free, slick blood and traces of torn flesh dotting his boot. He thumped it down a couple of times to ensure that his walking grip was secure, then walked over to the far wall and simply stood still, facing away from everyone for a moment, holding his stomach in a way which suggested that he was glad he hadn't eaten more over the previous week odd. Serena raised an eyebrow, wondering whether he was going to fold up on them because of it-she would /not/ have been impressed if he had-but he straightened up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then turned to look at them again.

"That, was disgusting, can I just say that? What's next?" he asked, trying to look bright and enthusiastic despite everything. She had to hide a silent smile...

"Next" grunted Webb, extracting himself from underneath Aaron, who had slipped on the blood in the process of standing up and knocked Webb flat again, which had earned him a glare that would have singed wood, "we work out just what the Hell is going on here before we take another /step/. Stamper, you're the expert regarding the weird and the warped on this little jaunt. Take a look, tell me what you think, what you can see" he said, kicking the corpse lying still on the floor as his boots splashed in the slick blood.

"Um, okay, but I should probably warn you now-" Stamper began, but Webb cut him off. "Do-your-JOB man! Aaron, make a note: find a computer terminal, find out just what's happened here if you can find an intact one en route. Tom, if its wearing a uniform you don't recognise or looks strange, /shoot/ it, soldiers discretion. Serena, oh lady of mystery, do whatever the Hell it is you do but make sure Stamper gets to the labs and recovers a sample of whatever. Chris, try not to die and stop hiding under her wing, be a man for crying out loud. I'll take care of anything not mentioned. Questions?" asked Webb, firing off orders as though he was in charge of the World. 

Serena ignored him, stepped up close to Stamper and forced him to look her in the eye by simply standing as close to him as possible until he had no choice even as he tried to examine the door. "Stamper?" she asked, quietly, raising an eyebrow. When he just looked nervous, she moved in even closer. "I know that look, and I know your type. Maybe he won't listen, but /I/ will? What is it? What have you found?" she asked, her brilliant blue eyes almost seeming to burn into the small mans. 

Corporal "Mad" Bill Stamper was a known physical coward, poor soldier and bad shot. He was not, though, a fool, had never been accused of being one even when he was demonstrating his bizarre, genius grasp of every kind of drug and poison even in High School, and, when he had to, could stand his ground, fight his corner with the best of them. Physically weak, his odd mind was the opposite, but few understood that, or him, so he had been recruited by the army when he refused to work for any Drug company on the basis of honouring his dead fathers "America for the little people" approach, given a job that suited his talents and left to flourish. 

A man who had a habit of ignoring any non-physical authority, though, he had pushed his superiors patience to breaking point at last when he had refused to meet a visiting General and had to be bodily dragged from his lab by two Military Police officers. He had been looking at a Court-Martial and a Dishonourable Discharge before Moralto had intervened, and had found himself on his way to Iraq despite his stated fears. Now he just wanted to get in, do the job and get out, back to his lab, where he lived and loved his work. What he had to do to get that was what he /would/ do.

However, one look into the cold eyes of Serena Baccarrin made every defence he had ever had melt away as though it was nothing. The woman was a force of nature, whether she knew it or not, and he knew better than to even try and refuse her anything...

"Uh-um, well... I know what did this, but you won't believe me" Stamper began, almost flinching as Serena moved in so close to him that he could feel her warm breath on his cheek. He wasn't the type to be struck dumb by physical beauty, such things didn't have the effect on him that they did on other people, but she was more than that, so much more than that... He barely even registered that he'd stopped speaking...

"Stamper, you don't know me, what I do, where I've been or what I've seen. You /cannot/ understand /what/ I believe and don't, so don't /ever/ make judgements where I'm concerned, you will be /wrong/. Now go on" replied Serena, her voice a low hiss, her words for his ears alone.

He swallowed, then continued, trying to explain what he'd realised as simply as he could. "Some/one/ did this, not some/thing/, okay? I know its impossible, but hear me out" he began, to a nod from Serena as he moved to stand by the door. Making sure that she was watching, he stood facing the ruined door, then demonstrated by grabbing the upper half of the door, where the thick metal was severely buckled and broken.

"The door is closing, so the man grabs it, simply tries to physically stop it. Not very bright, the machinery was stronger than him, even though he came close, so he can bend the door out of shape but can't stop it from closing. Angry now, he tries to punch and tear his way through however he can, but he can't do that either" said Stamper, simulating the punches and wrenching moves that the assault on the door had involved as he spoke, "So he keeps hitting the door until it clicks that he's not going anywhere, then he tears out the upper hinge with one last attempt before stomping off to wherever. Before all of this he killed the guard with a knife and his bare hands before ripping out the internal organs and probably eating them. Why I don't know, or how, no-one sane or physically "normal" could do this, though" concluded Stamper, finishing his run-through of what had occurred.

"I agree" replied Serena, looking thoughtful, "As far as it goes. There's a hole in your theory, though. No /sane/ man could or would do this, but no human is physically capable, no matter how mad. Tell me something, just how high does your clearance go?" she asked, studying the door closely.

"Code 10 in specialised areas, 8 outside that, I'm a chemical super-freak so it has to be for me to work. Why?" asked Stamper, not sure what she was getting at-although he noticed that she didn't look impressed at his revelation, especially odd given the fact that clearance ended at level 12 with the President as far as he knew.

"Not quite sure, but I have a few ideas. If you don't know what I'm talking about I'll deny everything, by the way... Have you ever heard of Ares Hounds?" asked Serena, raising an eyebrow. Stamper felt his jaw drop, but it didn't register as he took in just what she'd mentioned...

"How the /F***/ do you-?! Yes, God yes, but that's not possible, that's a part of Project: Apocalypse. That things sealed up so tight even the President has to call personally to find out just what's going on, or so I hear. More to the damn /point/, that little pet project of the Communities is /so/ off the books I doubt that the NSA could track it down. /NOTHING/ leaks out of that little party, that's practically an Order signed by God himself and you know it. If the process was used untested there is /no/ telling what would happen in any case, I consulted enough to know that for a fact. That is just /NOT/ a part of this" Stamper replied, firmly, shaking his head quickly in denial.

Serena just smiled at the sight. "You don't know everything you think you do, Stamper, everything starts somewhere. There have been rumours flying around about Community involvement with big business to develop these things for decades, who's to say someone didn't decide on a little off-the-books test run and just didn't care what the results were as long as they were recorded? I've seen worse happen and helped out once or twice, so nothing is impossible..." said Serena, deliberately allowing her words to trail off suggestively.

"No way, no way..." replied Stamper, still not wanting to believe that it even might possibly be possible, but it was fast becoming evident that Serena knew far more than he did about these areas, no matter how clued-up he thought himself. He was a real Conspiracy freak, too... /Super Soldiers don't exist.../ he thought, hopefully...

/End of Chapter 4-Hope that your interested out there. The action may be on slow burn at the moment, but bad things are well on the way.../ 


	5. Chapter 5

For all Disclaimers: See Chapters One and Two.

Note: If you don't read this story from the start, it won't make much sense. You know you want to... Also, this symbol denotes radio communication.

CHAPTER FIVE Lost Souls 

/June 8th, 1996, central Iraq/

Chris had picked up on the fact that Serena and Stamper were discussing things that were not for his ears, from the fact that they'd both been talking so quietly that he hadn't even caught a whisper. He'd worked out a large part of what they were discussing, though, when Stamper demonstrated his theory of how the door had received such massive damage. He hadn't caught the details, but Serena had been nodding as though she agreed with his suggestions, which was a very good sign even given just how little he knew of the mysterious soldier-if she even was one. He had a feeling, had since he'd seen her, that she was something he didn't want to know more about who was, for whatever reason, exceptional at her job...

HHH

However, when Stamper had told everyone to hold on then gone into detail about what he believed had happened, even with Serena's silent backing, Chris had seriously wondered whether he'd wandered into an episode of "The Twilight Zone" by mistake. His scepticism must have been obvious on his face because he saw Serena glance at him, but a quick smile drifted across her face for some reason at the sight. Webb's reaction, however, managed to annoy her with very little effort-he burst out laughing.

"God almighty, I have to stop laughing before I die... Sorry, I really am sorry, but I seem to have lost forty odd years and any semblance of reality here somehow. That's impossible and my five-year-old could tell you why, though he hasn't even seen the monster movies of the 50's yet. What do you expect next? A Rain of Frogs? The Creature of the Black Lagoon to crawl out of Toxic sludge and eat us while were not looking?! Good God alive, Stamper, but this time you've taken something which disagreed with you to make that weird little brain work in a way us mere mortals can understand" said Webb, still chuckling as he slowly shook his head from side to side.

"Webb, if I subtracted everything you know from everything I know and used a bucket to hold what was left the remainder would be flowing over the rim. You have less than no idea of what chemicals make up a Truth Serum, let alone anything more complicated than pure water, wouldn't recognise a truck if it ran over your feet twice while the driver shot at you and would die tomorrow if you resigned today because you couldn't survive in the real world.

You are stupid, pathetic as regards everything but military skills and tactics and no doubt get your wife to do your taxes because the forms have long words which are too complicated for your attention span. If you actually have anything intelligent to say I suggest you submit it in writing first so that I can check the spelling. Apart from that, Stamper could run rings around you from now to Eternity in every way except fighting if you did nothing but study for the rest of your life and we all know it. Shut up, or else, am I clear?" asked an annoyed Serena.

Webb's face turned dark red in fury as veins stood out on his neck and head, making everyone but Serena take a step away from him, convinced that he was going to loose it and smash Serena into the ground, literally, at any moment. Chris thought that Serena would slice the mans head clean off his neck without a moments hesitation before mounting his remains on a sharp stick rammed right through the remains starting at the Anus and coming out of the neck. No-one, however, not even Webb, knew what was going to happen next, so they all waited with baited breath...

Webb slowly ground his teeth audibly, then practically snarled at the dead calm Serena. "Oh, your very clear, Miss Enigma, so let me be just as clear. I don't like you, don't trust you and don't know what the Hell it is your actually up to, so I will at no point show you my back and I /strongly/ suggest that everyone else takes the hint. Apart from that, I don't wreck missions on purpose, so I'll say this" said Webb, stalking closer until he was right in Serena's face. "We finish this later, and I will remember /every word/, clear?" he hissed.

Serena didn't even blink an eyelid while staring Webb straight in the eyes. "I'll wait for you at the Gates, Webb, we'll both pass through them at some point. Until then, absorb the fact that you are not always right and that half the people here are a Hell of a lot smarter than you and you may live long enough for it to matter at some point in the future. Chris, get over here" replied Serena, her expression cool, the look in her eyes glacial. Neither of them looked away until forced to by Tom slamming his boot heel into the steel floor so hard that the sharp clang echoed around them for several seconds, startling almost everyone.

Webb wheeled away to take in Aaron and Tom, his selected team, while Serena gave Chris the once over before staring at Stamper until he stood up straight and looked as though he was a man on a mission at the very least, even if he didn't, necessarily, act like it. Once he was, apparently, ready, she glanced back at Chris and looked at him in a way which he read as "Stay close" before turning back to face Webb and the others.

"Alright, everyone, clarification time. This facility is almost certainly a mess, but that does not mean that no one is alive, nor does it mean that the Security systems are not working, so these are now our guidelines. You see anything in uniform you don't recognise shoot first, ask questions later, what happened here is irrelevant beyond as far as it directly effects us and the mission. You see anyone out of uniform make an attempt to capture and interrogate them if you consider it a viable possibility, but if they see you they do not escape. Clear? Good. Finally, you have standing orders and mission objectives, but from now on we communicate only by Call Sign. Any questions?" asked Webb, looking around at everyone, his anger clearly under tight control despite his brief glares at Serena and Stamper.

No-one spoke, although Chris considered asking whether or not running like Hell was acceptable as a choice if confronted by a victim of the plague or whatever it was that was being held down here that they were after if the thing had somehow been released or had escaped. He decided not to with the help of one look at Webb's face, the man was clearly ready to exercise extreme violence on anything or anyone with even the slightest excuse. Worse than that, he strongly suspected that Serena would cripple Webb if he did anything to any member of the team, she and Webb had barely even met and clearly wanted to kill each other already. Never a good sign, let alone a good start on a mission like this one.

"Good, then lets go. Aaron, find a way to shut this door again before we do..." said Webb, his voice trailing off as Tom totally ignored him in favour of watching and listening to Serena. There were three ways out of the location they were in, a corridor almost straight ahead and to the right, a second to the direct left that went off into the distance and a last one which went into the wall behind them six feet to the doors right, a place where light was totally lacking. The flickering lights where they were made seeing where they were and what they were doing far from easy, but that was worse. He sincerely hoped that she wouldn't choose that one-all the while, of course, expecting her to.

Later, he would wish that she had.

The centre of the facility was where the most secure area would be, that took no guesswork. That that was where the trouble would almost certainly have started was also a given, in her professional opinion, that was the way these things tended to work. It all simply meant that they were going to have to do her job for a while, which meant walking into Hell with the eyes wide open and a smile on your face while you killed as though you had nothing better to do and wanted to pass the time. Chris would manage, in her opinion, Stamper wouldn't, but they could cover for him until they didn't need him any longer.

A plan was easy, they simply took the most direct route to where they wanted to go, did their best to go in a straight line and dealt with the situation as it presented itself. She liked plans like that, they were straightforward, clear-cut and precise with no need to make extensive Backup plans to cover for every possible Contingency and catastrophe that might even possibly occur. In other words, she expected everything which could go wrong to do just that and the only thing that she could definitely count on was that she would do her job as professionally as she always did... Well, that made this just like every other mission, then. The door straight ahead it was.

Serena drew both her pistols, knocked off the safeties and strode forwards with fearless ease, moving with a Panthers fluid grace, diamond-sharp blue eyes piercing every shadow, twisting round every bend, missing nothing. Stamper kept his Glock holstered, glancing around nervously, but Serena's sharp ears didn't miss the "Click" of him quietly taking the safety off. Chris drew his Desert Eagle, took off the safety and fell in behind Stamper, who was behind and between Serena and him, the safest place for him as far as Chris was concerned. He didn't doubt for even a second that Serena was supremely capable at whatever it was she did, but that didn't make him any less nervous. After all, if something or someone got the jump on him-well, by the time Serena could pull whatever off or kill the attacker, he would most likely be dead regardless...

The long corridor they were walking along, slowly, had no obvious end in sight. Long, grey steel walls, ceiling and roof were the only constants, along with the steady electric lights that lit up everything like Flash photography from Hell. Occasional doors appeared on either side of them, but most of them were locked using computerised locks that needed Key cards and they didn't have any. Chris strongly suspected that Serena could have bypassed even electronic locks given time, but she didn't seem to be inclined to try. All that she did was physically ensure that all of the doors actually were secure, the blood-red locking lights clearly on, before moving on, slowly but surely.

Something which puzzled Chris was the total lack of people and bodies, however, even any traces of remains-or violence, come to that. From what he understood, this place should have been filled with either dozens of people or-horrifically as may be- their remains, in pieces, burnt, injured or not. There was no-one and nothing around, at all, the complex seemed as quiet and as dead as a tomb, as though it was a crypt and everyone in it was already dead and buried-he /really/ wished that he hadn't thought of that...

The only constant was the low hum of the electric lights, the slow but steady thump of three sets of boots on steel, Serena's slow but steady, measured breathing, his own slightly fast breathing and Stamper's fast breaths-the man was very nervous. What a surprise, Chris couldn't help but think. The problem was, did he have reason to be? /Good/ reason, even?

They were underneath a complex run by the military in Iraq, where even the civilians would cheerfully mutilate them to death given half a chance in most cases if they saw the uniforms, a top-secret facility which had been developing-or /was/ developing-some kind of biological weapon, or at least that was his best guess. There were no guards, the first thing they'd found was dead bodies, both victims having sustained horrific injuries which weren't easily explained, even... Worse, the complex had clearly been shut down by a Security Alert of the highest order, the only feasible reason for all of the interior and exterior doors being closed and locked in an alert situation, and /no-one/ was around to be seen, anywhere. Had the weapon, whatever it was, gotten loose in the complex? Had the complex personnel evacuated because of that only not all of them had gotten out? He took a deep breath, then forced himself to calm down. Getting himself into a right state over this, which he was doing the way he was thinking, would do no-one, least of all him, any good...

"Damn..." came a muttered comment from Serena, just ahead of them. Chris looked around and noticed, to his annoyance, that they'd reached a T-junction and his attention had been wandering since he hadn't noticed. Then he thought about it, followed Serena's gaze up towards the roof-and abruptly felt as though he'd been sucker-punched in the guts with a Crowbar as his legs shook. His nose caught the stench before his eyes took in the sight, but he didn't need to see anything to know the sickly-sweet stench of fear and death combined.

Blood drenched the walls on all sides of the T-junction corridors, bits of what looked like flesh being mixed in with thick other fluids as well. The awful stink of human effluence was everywhere, letting Chris know whoever this had been had known terrible fear before they'd died. Huge dents in the walls smeared with blood showed evidence of a fight, a completely one-sided one, but what had ended it was obvious. By the largest dent, a huge impact which had evidently imprinted the body right into the wall, traces of hair, flesh, skull and-Serena would later tell him-brain were evident where the head would have hit. Such an impact would have been instantly fatal, even notwithstanding the numerous other injuries such a beating would have caused.

Up high, however, just above their heads, was the worst. A ceiling area had been beaten almost completely out of shape, then torn loose before being replaced. Blood was /still/ dripping slowly down around the edges, so /something/ was up there. Worst of all, this had been done very recently for fresh blood still to be moving like that, even Chris, with his Schoolboy knowledge and basic First-Aid training for treating wounds in the field of combat, knew that...

Serena grimaced, then stepped forwards and stood underneath the battered panel. She reached up and shoved it, her height allowing her to reach it easily. Something shifted with a dull thump atop it, something heavy-maybe more than one something…

"Stand back, you two. /DON'T/ argue" she snapped, as Chris opened his mouth to suggest, loudly, that she should leave whatever was up there the Hell alone forever and a day. He stopped, then followed her Order, even though instinct told him to physically restrain her rather than let her pull down whatever was up there. He didn't even try to do anything else, he knew better than to think he could stop her doing anything she wanted to do.

She reached up and shoved again, the panel shifting more with a heavier thump-then she heaved up with all of her strength. The panel came free-then /_things_/ began to fall down from it, battering Serena even as her arms instantly shifted to protect her head, thumping down and bouncing or rolling around all over the place, some just landing with dull thumps. Something bounced down and around until it somehow ended up right at a startled Stamper's feet-he began to scream...

Chris lunged forwards to shove Stamper out of the way, to see just what the Hell was going on-then nearly fainted when he finally got a good look at what had fallen down around them. At Stamper's feet was a human head, a severed human head with a deaths-head grin, blood still pouring from the torn stump of the neck, one eye out of the socket...

All around Serena were bloodied hands, feet, arms, legs, torsos, even fingers and toes. Shattered and torn flesh and bone stuck out in all directions from everywhere, tied around mangled and ruptured veins, arteries, even internal organs. Men and women, every part of them exposed, from abused sexual organs to mangled brains, were obvious everywhere one looked...

Some things just weren't meant to be seen, or ever known, yet now Chris was seeing them all. His legs trembled, his knees went weak as he felt terrible shock and horror shutting down his brain and cutting conscious control of his limbs out of the chain in his mind. He felt his bile rising, couldn't stop it, doubled over and threw up over his boots, again and again and again until he reeled away helplessly and slumped against a wall, left unable to move at all.

His last conscious image was one of the most disturbing things he would ever remember, however, despite everything that would happen to him in later years. A "snapshot" of Serena's face, even as the human filth and blood-drenched remains toppled down and over her again and again as she just stood there, unmoving. Despite the cold anger in her eyes, a strange smile almost lit up her face, as though something she'd always known had been proved right and the scene straight from Hell didn't really matter at all...

Webb, Aaron and Tom had taken the passageway to the left initially, but had run into a significant problem after little time. That problem, after about fifty metres and a sharp right turn with no other entrances or exits visible, was a door. A big, heavy door made of thick steel and numbered "_Room 101_". The only way in was via a computerised Keypad lock that showed a definite red "locked" symbol and a huge portal lock that had to be wound open and shut as though the heavy door was a primitive airlock.

Tom didn't doubt even for a second that the door was designed to keep things in the area beyond the door rather than those on the outside out, which always made him check his guns for killing use, but that didn't change the fact that they were probably going to have to find a way past it if Webb was as bloody-minded as he suspected he was. Not at all to his surprise, then, was Webb staring very closely at the digital lock the moment he saw it.

"Aaron, can you get around this thing?" asked Webb, looking over at the hulking Engineer, who shrugged. Aaron didn't want to go into that room, no matter what, but orders were orders, and he'd gotten into enough trouble for punching out his previous C.O. for ordering him to do something both impossible and illegal then threatening to shoot him in the leg when he'd refused. He'd do what it took to get back his Commission-all Moralto had said he had to do to get it was live through this mission, if successful, after all.

"With a Laptop, no problem. Without one, I'd feel more comfortable blowing it, but we don't have enough in the way of explosives. So its my computer know-how against the machine. No guarantees, especially since I've no idea how this system works after all" replied Aaron, with a helpless gesture.

Webb sighed, very audibly, then nodded at the panel. "Alright, get started-what the Flaming-?!" exploded Webb abruptly, as the door abruptly unlocked with a sharp electronic "snap" that echoed all around them. The door shifted slightly, then swung partially open...

Tom sniffed the air and felt his stomach turn at just traces of what must have been in the room. The sickly-sweet stench of rotting meat and putrefying flesh, trace stinks of smells that only issued from deep inside the human body unless it was sliced open to release them, so foul the mind refused to recognise them. The sharp tang of terror, the awful aura of pain inflicted by those who enjoyed it, the dark taint of madness underlying everything...

Tom was a regular "Go-To" man for Black Operation missions of every kind for anyone who needed things done, he more often than not worked so far off the books that even the people who gave him his orders didn't know his name. He'd done Covert Wetworks jobs for the US Army all over the world on every Continent, killed without a thought, slaughtered, destroyed and ruined countless numbers of people, organisations and places.

He'd forgotten his reason for joining up to in any way "Do the right thing" years ago-but enough of the man he had been had remained to make him completely loose his temper when flawed intelligence on a mission in Cambodia against the remains of the Khmer Rouge had, added to incompetence and outright stupidity from superior officers who honestly seemed to think they could control Fate, left over half his team dead, with the rest scattered to the winds running for their lives. With him left looking

down the barrel of a gun a madman then used in an attempt to shoot off his kneecaps and emasculate him, he'd been tempted to recite the Shiloh in the moments he'd had left-then a sound had distracted his attacker. Five men with guns against him with a nasty knock to the head had been all he'd needed. When he and his surviving men got back he'd proceeded to put the commanding officer in a Wheelchair and then a Coma in short order, leaving him looking at serious time in Fort Leavenworth Military prison. After what had happened he hadn't cared in the least, but Moralto had made a better offer. After all, Tom did love his job...

The problem was, every bit of experience his time in the forces had gained him, every scrap of know-how he'd picked up along the way, told him, along with his instincts, not to go into that Damn room at any price. Death was just waiting for everyone in there, he knew it, maybe even Serena, who was the coldest, toughest, most lethal individual he'd ever met. The other problem was that he knew he was going to regardless, since Webb was too stupid not to and there was no way he was going to miss out on a good fight...

"Oookay, does anyone else here think that, just maybe, that's not normal?" asked Aaron, staring at the abruptly open door as though it had the words "_Abandon hope all ye who enter here_" literally burnt into the frame over it. Tom smirked, apparently the big Engineer had better instincts than Webb, surprise surprise.

"Only if "normal" consists of the sun only rising every two days, Aaron... Oh, for Gods sake this is ridiculous, were soldiers, not Asylum case nut jobs. Call it a fluke, call it an Act of God, call it a bad joke by someone who cares, we need to know where this leads. Follow me, and stay close" said Webb, stepping forwards into the Abyss, or at least that was the only appropriate description that Tom could think of. He knew that Serena had read "1984" by George Orwell, he wondered if Webb had, or if he had even the slightest idea of the possibilities that existed here, in a room designated what this one was...

Webb stepped inside, chambering a round on his M-16. Aaron double-checked his Combat Shotgun and followed, Tom by his side, AK-47 ready and waiting for anything odd which so much as twitched in the place. After a second to look around, Tom came to two conclusions: first, that he'd been right, they really should not have come in here, no matter what Webb said, did or ordered. Second, that he'd seen less pain, blood and slaughter in a Butchers Abattoir when the killing had been occurring.

Steel tables were set all around the walls of a room which was at least thirty feet wide by twenty long, the roof rising a good fifteen feet, with a steel door at the far end which appeared to open into a smaller material and drugs holding area fronted by a massive pane of likely shatterproof glass. In the middle of the room four vertical stretchers were raised, facing out into the rest of the room using the four points of the Compass, while a single huge stretcher hung over the four vertical ones, suspended by chains linked to all four corners. The room was the same as the rest of the complex in that it had featureless grey steel walls, panelled ceiling and floor with brilliant white electrical lights illuminating everything, but that was where anything to do with sanity ended.

Very few sights could make Tom's jaw simply drop, let alone leave him completely speechless, but this did. Thirty-five "beds" existed, including the suspended stretcher with the invisible occupant and the four upright stretchers, being placed in equal rows leading from the entrance to the storeroom. Between him and the storeroom, however, every kind of surgical abomination that the Devil himself could ever have imagined had been practised, even some that the eyes simply could not take in.

Men, women and children of all ages were strapped with heavy-duty iron and leather restraints to the surgical tables, as were animals such as horses and dogs. All of them had been sliced open, apart in some cases-various body parts were missing, bloody stumps being wrapped crudely with bandages through which a pools of slick red blood often streaked the floor-and worse. Mutilation seemed to have been the order of the day for almost everything in that place, stripped skin, broken bones, pictures drawn in living flesh with knives, acid burns melting the muscles of arms, legs and chest, even one entirely flayed body ghastly in its ever-silent writhing, screaming position since the victims horrific death. Spikes had been rammed through hands and feet, while at least one victim of the sick abuse of everything to do with Science that had occurred here had had their chest opened up and filled with glass, the posture and injuries making clear that the victim had suffered this before death. Bloody whips and chains decorated the room around and about the surgical tables while used Syringes had been discarded carelessly all about, even having been left in the veins of those assaulted in some cases.

Torn, ruptured flesh, arteries and organs amongst the bodies were all about for everyone to see, blood having sprayed the walls and floor, even the ceiling in some cases. Some of the bodies had started to decompose, parts rotting slowly away as there had been no apparent effort to preserve or move them in some time, but the indescribable smell of putrefying flesh slowly liquefying into something unspeakable came from one place only, the raised surgical table where whatever had once been there was concealed from view.

Tom had been sent to the former territories of the state of Yugoslavia in 1994 and 1995 to gather information and deal with some of the more "enthusiastic" dealers of death to those whom they considered inferior, such as anyone not of their ethnic type. He'd seen hundreds of dead bodies piled atop one another like a stack of wood just waiting to fall over, men, women and children mixed in amongst dead animals and anything left of their lives before it had all been thrown in a mass grave and buried. He'd seen a thousand bodies strewn through the quiet woods outside towns taken and retaken by all sides, where everyone was dead or just gone, fleeing in a frantic attempt to escape the insanity, seen blood and guts strewn all over and everywhere. He'd seen bodies literally torn apart into pieces one could hold in the hand and thrown in all directions with no more than the dull "Whump" of a mine going off, seen people turn into no more than a red mist as several machine guns and then Mortars fired on them at once, shredding them into something so small no-one would ever find it...

He'd seen the face of /Hell/, but he'd /never/ seen anything as concentrated, as purely, simply evil, as this. Whoever, or rather /whatever/ had done this, had been enjoying themselves...

Aaron's face lost all colour on taking in the scene and his legs shook, but he'd seen a few things in his time and pulled himself together slowly but surely. Tom's face simply lost all expression, but otherwise the sight didn't seem to mean much to him. Webb's face curled in an expression of disgust, but that seemed to be the limit of the effect of the horror's in that place on him.

"For the record, Holy Freakin' Moses! Now, does anyone have any good reason we should not leave here so fast our feet hurt for the rest of our lives?" asked Webb, glancing around at Tom and Aaron. Tom noticed, for the briefest part of a split second, a very odd look in Webb's eye that he couldn't quite make out, but it was gone just as quickly. What was going on in Webb's head? He had to wonder.

"There might be a remote computer terminal in the storeroom, we need to check it out" rumbled Aaron, not looking in the least bit happy about his own suggestion. Webb rolled his eyes, then shook his head as though he'd known he'd hear something he didn't like if he just waited long enough.

"I know, that doesn't mean that I even possibly want to go in there for any reason other than what we need will be in there, but what does that really matter? We have to go in, no matter what. Guns ready, if it even twitches load it with lead. Aaron, no matter what keep an eye on the main door" said Webb, walking slowly forwards into the room. Aaron followed him, with Tom gritting his teeth and falling in behind the two of them...

They walked slowly through the room, staying close and ready, nervous trigger-fingers on a razor edge, jumpy with a sensation that made the hairs on the back of their necks prick up as though something was walking across their graves even though nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary beyond the obvious. Tom's instincts were screaming at him, everything that mattered to him as far as his own survival was concerned was telling him to run like Hell out of the room and not look back, ever...

He noticed that Aaron's legs were shaking, stepped forwards sharply and nudged the bigger man in the back. Aaron nearly pulled the trigger before his head snapped around and caught sight of Tom, his eyebrows shooting up. "What the Hell-?!" he muttered, so quietly that Webb didn't catch even a murmur, but Tom put a finger over his lips.

"Do /not/ freak out on us now, Aaron, this deranged freak show is bad enough without those left alive going psycho on us" hissed Tom, glaring at the taller man in a way which made clear that the situation simply was not going to occur, one way or another. Aaron stared at Tom for a long moment, then took a deep breath, visibly composed himself and nodded.

/_Chink_/

Tom's head snapped up as he glanced around at the strange sound-had only he heard it? The squeak of strained metal grating against more, a strange sound beneath that he couldn't quite pin down. Aaron and Webb didn't seem to have heard a thing, not altering their step in the least...

/_Chr-skrink_/

It took Tom a moment too long to realise that the sound had come from directly behind and to his left. Even as he began to turn, he caught the sick stench of death and rot far closer than it should have been, so close that it overwhelmed him briefly. He caught a glimpse of a dead woman sitting upright on her steel stretcher-a second before her teeth met in the meat of his upper arm as her hands reached for him...

Webb and Aaron span in unison as Tom suddenly howled in pain, guns raised-Aaron froze, too shocked to act at the sight added to total disbelief of the situation. A corpse had freed its upper body from the restraints on a stretcher, sat up and bitten Tom on the arm. Thick red blood splattered on the floor even as Tom lurched forwards and sideways away from the thing, trying to wrench his arm free while only doing more damage as his wound tore open. Aaron went into automatic and aimed his shotgun at the things face, ready to blow its head off and kill it dead all over again, his mind unable to take in what he was seeing-Webb shoved him, spoiling his aim.

Webb smoothly changed weapons in the blink of an eye, slinging his M-16 and drawing his Desert eagle, barely seeming even to aim before putting a large-calibre bullet through the corpses face. The shot took half the head off at point-blank range, whipping the things head backwards with such force that the neck audibly snapped even as Tom was abruptly freed. He stumbled, caught himself, started to shout at Webb-then stopped and broke into a dead sprint for the exit door after a single glance around him. Aaron followed his eyes and nearly lost his nerve once and for all, even as low moans started to sound all around-/_all_/ of the things were moving, twitching, grunting, struggling to get free-to feed, Aaron automatically thought. He briefly, insanely, wanted to shriek that he was living in a George Romero movie and it was the end of the world as we know it-then he stopped thinking altogether and took off after Tom at a turn of speed that would have killed his old track coach from shock alone, Webb so close on his heels that only Aaron's greater bulk stopped him from running right over the other man to get out even faster.

Things started to happen very fast after this.

The doors green "Open" light abruptly shifted to amber and the heavy steel door started to close right in front of them. Tom, the closest and fastest, already travelling at frightening speed, put on a burst of speed and threw himself into the gap between door and frame a split second before it would have shut them inside. He braced himself instantly, but the muscles all over his body contorted in a second as his face went purple with effort, blood streaming down his wounded arm. He couldn't hold it by himself and he knew it, but he didn't leave people behind.

Aaron arrived a moment later, skidded to a halt and wedged his arms against the doors closing pressure, forcing as much of his weight and brute strength against the mechanism as was physically possible. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference, the door was weighted to close against a tons worth of weight if he was any judge, it would have taken a truck to force it open, and he had no time to improvise.

Webb skidded in by sliding low, coming in under the bigger Aaron, rolled to his feet and rammed his shoulder against the door with an expression which made clear he wasn't moving until his shoulder cracked. His footing wasn't holding, he immediately noticed, his boots scraping on the steel floor as he gritted his teeth and strained every muscle. He'd known it wasn't enough before he even started, though, all they could do was buy time.

"AARON-Get the bloody /DOOR/!" roared Tom, his voice almost a bellow of pain as it sounded over the moans of the living dead and the continuing whir of the electric motors sealing the room. Webb nearly punched Aaron in the face in frustration when he seemed to fail to react, but Aaron glanced up in the nick of time.

"Do /WHAT/?! If I move this thing will shut you maniac-!" Aaron shouted back-Webb's hand shot up, grabbed Aaron's head and forced him to look into the room they were trying to escape abruptly. Aaron's eyes shot all the way open in terror...

The dead were rising, literally, the apparently actually unsecured bodies pulling free of the restraints slowly but surely. Bits and pieces of torn skin, flesh and muscle were falling to the floor everywhere, some trailing behind the rotting remains of what had once been human beings. Exposed organs were black with rot, hearts weren't beating, ribs, finger and leg bones were barely concealed behind thin tendrils of meat, cartilage and ropy muscle, pieces were simply missing-one Zombie had lost an arm but was stumbling around regardless, the torn-off extremity still twitching feebly in the restraints. Men, women and children were coming to kill him and-judging by the increasingly violent struggles and horrific growls coming from the not-human creatures ruined throats, the product of blood, rotten flesh and decaying lungs trying to make sound-it was only a matter of time until the animals were loose, too...

"OH JESUS! OH CRAP-!" screamed Aaron, wrenching free of the door so fast part of his uniform tore loose. He found a panel by the door in seconds, one built into the wall that needed to be unscrewed. No time. He pounded it frantically with his fists, beating it weirdly out of shape with merely a few massive blows, twisted it, wrenched at it-it came loose enough for him to see behind it. He glimpsed the insides and almost screamed in frustration.

"Hell! Hell Hell Hell! Goddammit all to /HELL/ twice over-! Tom, Webb, get off the door, were SCREWED! We need a computer specialist to get round this thing and I AM NOT ONE!" roared Aaron, standing up and grabbing Tom, literally wrenching him out of the closing doorways path just in time to prevent him from being crushed. Webb went over backwards, just avoiding getting caught by the door as it slammed closed himself, only to find himself staring straight up into a Zombies rotting face. He yelped, span around and up onto his knees and landed an uppercut with such force into the Zombies gut that it folded up around the blow and was thrown three feet backwards by the sheer power behind it, although the manoeuvre left bits of human body parts, internal and external, all over his hand, things he didn't want to think about...

"EVERYBODY /DOWN/!" roared Aaron, unslinging his automatic shotgun and levelling it even as he set it to fully automatic. Webb's eyes were as wide as saucers at the sight a second before he dived flat, Tom throwing himself flat a moment later, hands over his ears. It was a moment longer before Aaron opened up with the huge gun at point-blank range, screaming "DIE! DIE! DIE!" at the top of his lungs...

It sounded like the end of the world combined with the wrath of God. The devastating, roaring blast of the heavy shotgun going off at close quarters seemed to shake the world and threatened to punch in Webb's eardrums even as the massive pressure of the gun going off so close seemed to pick him up and repeatedly slam him against the floor.

Somehow glimpsing the scene through bright flashes of gunfire, hearing the boom of the big gun and catching bits of Aaron's almost hysterical howls in between shots as the huge man let off a stream of invectives, screaming like a crazy man, Tom and Webb glimpsed the worst sight in the world get even worse. Bits and pieces of human bodies, huge chunks and tiny shreds of flesh, fragments of bone, other parts, were blasted left and right, up and down all over the room, _things_ flying all about as hot metal bullets sparked off of steel surfaces in all directions.

Limbs were torn off, heads exploded, chests were shredded, faces disappeared, whole bodies were physically wrenched off of their feet and thrown backwards over tables and into groups of others who were blasted backwards by the awful impact of the heavy shells slashing through and slaughtering everything in sight. Blood flew all over the room in sprays and whips torn straight from hideous wounds that erupted all over the Zombies bodies-but even so, not all of them fell as Aaron's first clip ran dry. Worse than that, some of those who had fallen started clawing their way back to their feet even with pieces of them and even entire limbs simply missing, while one, torn almost in half with guts trailing on the floor, unable to stand, kept trying to claw its way forwards until, with a dreadful finality, its battered and broken upper half simply tore loose of the shreds of flesh connecting it to its lower body, hands like claws dragging it forwards regardless.

"/VERY/ bloody clever, Aaron, want to kill us too while your at it?! This place has steel walls and doors, moron, you /DO NOT/ fire a weapon like that at that range in closed quarters like this! IDIOT!" shouted Tom, scrambling to his feet, his ears still ringing even as he made ready his AK-47.

"Catch you later, Aaron, but only if you maybe TRY and maintain fire discipline-?! Oh, the Hell with it! Storeroom! NOW!" shouted Webb, even as the first dog finally slipped its restraints and hit the floor with a scratch of sharp claw on steel, blood-red sick eyes staring unblinking at them, horribly evident in the devastating silence left by Aaron's barrage. Webb raised his M-16 and dropped the dog with a single three-round burst that stitched right across its head over the eyes, the three bullets shredding the things brain in a second.

Tom moved for the storeroom-paused and stared at Aaron, who wasn't moving except for a slight twitch of the lips. "Oh, what now you..." Tom muttered, feeling increasingly angry at the insane situation they were in that could have been avoided except for Webb's-he abruptly caught what Aaron was slowly repeating, over and over and over again.

"Their dead, their dead their dead their dead their dead-" Aaron was saying, over and over again. The big man wasn't in shock, Tom knew what to look for, he just couldn't cope with the situation at the moment, and they didn't have time for this...

Tom stepped in close and slammed a punch into Aaron's stomach so hard he hurt his hand, the impact leaving him feeling as though he'd punched rock. Aaron had the muscle to match his size and apparently worked out to make sure, but that didn't mean that he couldn't be hurt. He almost staggered, then stopped speaking to stare at Tom in genuine shock...

"/RUN/ man!" Tom bellowed into his face, then span and took his own advice, smacking Zombies out of the way with elbows, kicks, gun butt and even head butts as necessary as he ploughed through the recovering Zombie horde, Webb right beside him doing exactly the same, both men fighting like the fate of the world depended on their survival. Aaron took a split-second to think about it, then charged in with a roar, sweeping his arms left and right to clear a space, smashing Zombies over like bowling pins with his superior strength and bulk even before he laid about himself with his shotgun like a club, Zombies falling with every blow as vital parts were broken, crushed or ripped clean off.

It took them seconds to reach the storeroom without much real opposition, a moment after they were all inside Aaron, Tom and Webb had slammed the door, grabbed everything heavy within reach and rammed it against the door to jam it shut, using everything from a filing cabinet to piled books. It was a long minute after that before any of them even began to think of anything but fighting for their lives as though Demons were trying to drag them down into Hell...

Aaron leaned against the door to add his weight and muscle to keeping it shut, then closed his eyes, breathed in deeply-and almost gagged as he caught the indescribably awful stench coming closer, coming in increasing waves from the rotting bodies of the living dead. Tom ripped off his uniform sleeve and bandaged the bite wound in his arm using his teeth to hold one end of the rough bandage before tying it off. The wound continued to bleed freely, the loose blood streaking Tom's left arm, but the flow was mainly stemmed and he judged that he was no longer likely to pass out from loss of blood or drop anything he was carrying in his left hand. That, at least, was some small relief.

Webb checked his weapons and gear, double-checked them, then turned to look out the window. Zombies were pressed up against it and more were pressed up against them, dull thumps echoing as the Zombies struck the glass repeatedly in an effort to beak through and get at the warm flesh and blood the other side. Webb really did hope that the glass was shatterproof, since if it wasn't he wasn't going to live long enough for it to matter...

"Somebody please tell me that that did /not/ just happen?" said Tom, very quietly, so quietly that the two other men barely heard him over the moans of the living dead outside the glass window and steel door. Webb didn't bother saying a word, on the basis that some things just didn't require explanation in his opinion. Aaron, running on edge already, battle nerves leaving his temper and self-control frayed at best, had other ideas.

"If you want me to tell you that dead and rotting men, women and children as well as animals did not just rise from the dead to attack us, that a dead woman did not just take a bite out of your arm, that there are things that one can only call Zombies, the living /DEAD/ to you and me, not currently laying siege to us in a storeroom with only one entrance or exit in an underground complex lost under Iraq apparently run by the Devil-SORRY, but I /CAN'T/!" Aaron practically shouted, earning him an angry look from Webb and an irritated one from Tom. He didn't care, the situation they were in was already so insane that his going a bit mad seemed perfectly well warranted to him.

"The question was rhetorical, Aaron, so DO NOT go Postal on us just yet if you have the willpower to make a decision like that. Anyway, we have to move, so give me a minute" replied Tom, checking his gear and weapons. Aaron automatically did the same at the sight, slapping a fresh magazine into his shotgun a second after ejecting the first one, which he didn't bother to pick up as regulations stated one should if possible. None of them said a word.

Tom reached up, tapped his Headset to activate it to send/receive rather than just receive, looked out at the moaning horde of rotting, living dead just outside the window once again, then spoke.

"Reaper, this is Iceman. Are you out there somewhere? Come back" he called out.

/End of Chapter 5-Its started... Reviews please? All comments welcomed/


	6. Chapter 6

For all disclaimers: See Chapters 1 and 2.

Note: This symbol denotes radio communication.

CHAPTER SIX Lost Souls 

/June 8th 1996, central Iraq/

Deep inside the complex, a middle-aged man in his mid-fifties with long grey hair held in a ponytail at the neck, sharp green eyes and a scowl stared at the Security camera feeds. Dressed in the green scrubs and long white coat of a Doctor, thick steel-framed glasses being perched on his beak-like nose, anyone would have guessed on sight that he was a Scientist and member of staff in this place. Almost no one would have guessed, however, just what it was he did there.

Professor Robert Creig was a man to whom happiness did not come easily. In fact, in abstract terms, he suspected that he had never actually been "happy" as such, since this implied a state of satisfaction with the way things were that he was incapable of accepting. Everything could be improved upon, from the Amoeba to the most sophisticated computer humanity had ever, would ever create. He should know, after all, the fact that his brain made him a certified off-the-scale genius was the reason Umbrella had appointed him as Chief Scientist in their little side operation in Iraq-but that was besides the point now.

They'd tried to tell him to scale down his activities, send them the research on Project: Nephilim, his baby and creation, a special offshoot of Project: Apocalypse. They'd said that he could continue working on it once they'd seen the data, of course, but they made the decisions and that was that.

They must have thought he'd had a partial Lobotomy or taken leave of his eyesight, anyone who paid attention knew Umbrella better than that. Men with guns and knives would have come to visit him the moment the information was no longer under his control, he had no doubt at all, so he'd taken steps.

First he'd disconnected the mainframe from external interface, preventing Umbrella from simply hacking out his Project records and ideas. Then he'd Locked Down the complex after calling his prime team into the central lab area, sealing the lab airtight after they'd entered. He'd shot all of them but Alice-she was sweet, after all, and very, very pretty-then gassed the rest of the complex with a Nerve Gas mingled with a variant form of the T-Virus, just to see what happened as much as anything.

Some man who had realised what was going on had managed to manually override the Escape Hatch-but he'd been too late, despite the presence of an armed guard with him. Only an Umbrella Spy with high-level access could have gotten past the Lockdown, so watching the T-Virus infected Wolf rip him half to shreds after almost cutting in half the guard on the Security cameras first had been modestly entertaining. That he'd managed to get out regardless was irrelevant, he was dead no matter what. He'd never doubted that releasing all of the Test subjects should this kind of event ever occur would be a good idea, now he'd been proved right. Joy.

Everybody else had, thankfully, had the decency to drop dead long before they got up again and started moaning and groaning like those silly old horror film Zombies, occasionally chewing on the remains of those few who had been unable to stand the idea of ending up products of the Virus and done what they had to do to make sure they never did. The prototype Behemoth class had performed particularly well so far. Attacked by a corridor full of Zombies it had summarily dismembered and mutilated everything in sight with effective speed and great efficiency and even remembered to conceal its leavings, as its Programming had dictated.

He planned on released the half-dead Ares Hound once it had fully resuscitated. Even in the state it was in it had required monster doses of Sedatives and Tranquillisers just to keep it out while it was attached to a steel stretcher with titanium shackles for emergencies-such as its insane metabolism managing to flush the drugs and wake it up abruptly, theoretically a possibility. Once it was awake the shackles would hold it for a minute, tops, then he'd see just what it could do off a leash.

All of the data was downloaded to his Laptop and wiped from the main system beyond all hope of recovery. His Agent was on the way-the entry of the Government team into the building had let him physically see his Agent to confirm that. The plan was on schedule and running perfectly-Alice was crying her eyes out behind him. Oh, yes. That.

He turned around and waved the gun in Alice's direction again causing her to screech with fear and terror again. A pity about the noise, really, it was the only actually bad thing about her. Long blond hair in a ponytail down her back, blue eyes, the smooth, delicate features of youth only adding to a fresh-faced beauty, perfect long legs, small bust emphasised by that tight shirt-why was she crying, screaming and snuffling with fear again? Didn't she realise that they were about to embark on a great adventure again? Well, she was going to bend over and provide most of the fun while he did all of the work, yes-

"Your INSANE!" she shrieked, again, her voice having risen a full octave since she started screaming the moment he gunned down the others, all three of them, seeping blood running across the floor, fragments of bone and flesh protruding from where bullets had entered and exited their bodies. Did she think that having no "social conscience" made him mad? Silly girl, of course it didn't. It just left him free of all those annoying inhibitions people who couldn't do his job had, little things like a "conscience" that was-why did you really need one of those at the end of it all in any case? All it ever did was hold one back from achieving your full potential.

"No, no, no, one last time, after me: I-AM-NOT-MAD. Madness would have been infecting myself with the Virus without taking the anti-Virus first, madness would have been letting Umbrella take what's mine. I'm not mad, I'm free. Now stop that whining, crying and moaning, sit up and smile more. Once my Hound gets here, we can leave, then spend plenty of blissful time together. I'm very experienced, I assure you... I just asked you to stop that wailing noise, didn't I?" grumbled Creig, as Alice started to wail in terror again...

Serena Baccarin was not happy, although, to be honest, it was mainly because she'd been covered in a variety of fluids normally internal to the human body, most of which smelt so bad they defied description and made her nose simply stop functioning. Of course, there was also the fact that pieces of flesh, bone chips and what looked like a large part of a human kidney decorated her clothes, skin and hair, a fact that /really/ annoyed her since she'd only just cleaned up after wearing that "native" dress for weeks on and off to maintain her cover. How anyone sane and with free will would deliberately wear those kind of clothes in this heat was beyond her...

She noted that the fall of rotting human flesh had finally stopped, put her arms back to her sides and looked around to get some idea of what they were dealing with. About...fifteen dismembered, lacerated, mutilated and shredded human bodies lay about in a variety of ways at a best guess. Everything that should have been seemed to be there somewhere, pulped bloody and almost unrecognisable in several cases, yes, but with anything capable of this level of violence one had to expect that-could she hear something...?

She looked back towards Stamper and Chris, wondering whether it was coming from either of them. Stamper was so pale and sick looking he looked as though he'd died and someone had forgotten to tell him, while Chris was apparently still throwing up off to the side. She couldn't blame him, what had happened here was ghastly at the very least, really horrific beyond description, but one saw these things in her line of work. Besides which, after what had...happened...to her all those years ago-well, she didn't get ill or disturbed on seeing even this screwed-up awful Godforsaken nightmare. She just recognised that whoever, or whatever, had done this needed to die, slowly and in great, great pain...

There it was again, soft multiple thumps, but there was more this time. Hunters ears could make out the scratching noise of something sharp scraping against a metal floor, as though something large was moving fast, or several smaller something's, an animal or several of a kind...several, she was suddenly certain. Coming towards them at an increasing rate of speed, as though whatever was out there had somehow sensed that they were here.

"CHRIS, Stamper, stand too and be ready to kill. We have trouble" she said, deliberately calling Chris Redfield's name particularly sharply since he was still dry-heaving, trying to vomit with nothing left to throw up. She had no more time to wait for him to recover, if this turned fatal she needed everyone mobile and ready in a second. She just hoped that Chris was enough of a soldier to work past his-admittedly severe-distraction. Thankfully, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, raised his head and drew his Desert Eagle with a nod, she was sure that he could. Stamper drew his Glock 45.-then literally squeaked with a combination of fear and shock as the things that were hunting them came into sight down the left-side corridor, barely fifty yards distant .

Dobermen guard dogs, big ones, with muscles and big, sharp white teeth that were of a size to match. The biggest would have hit her height on its back paws standing against her chest, it was up to her chest walking normally. It and nine others trotted into view, but the numbers weren't what made Serena's eyebrows shoot up. What did that was one simple fact that you couldn't fail to take in on sight: quite simply, they dogs were dead.

Skin was ragged and hanging loose or simply missing, gleaming red muscle, sinews and suddenly massive claws were abruptly all that mattered. Huge red eyes stared at them even as they stared straight back at the Hellhounds-or so Serena had decided to think of them, even as she noticed that she could see ones still apparently functioning lungs-the hounds charged.

Stamper screamed and fired first, his shot screeching a metre clear of the nearest dog as it ricocheted off of the wall in a shower of sparks. Serena had both her Smith & Wesson 9MM pistols in hand in a breath and was shooting next, shooting one dog in the head, a second in the heart, the bullets pulping vital organs as she fired with perfect aim. Chris's Desert Eagle roared once and a dog lost its front left leg as well as part of its chest, collapsing into a smear of blood as a huge chunk of its side was simply torn clean away. The injured dog Chris had shot kept trying to get up, though, and the dog she'd shot in the heart barely did anything more than stagger before, blood now pouring from its chest, it came on, all of the nine dogs growling, snarling with feral fury.

Serena fired three times with both pistols at the dogs, doubling up to be sure since she really wasn't sure what it would take to kill these things. Head shots every time, three more dogs collapsed before the remainder got too close to her for her to keep shooting. Chris's second shot pulped the head of a dog while his third shattered the spine of a third, leaving it limp on the floor but not dead. Stamper fired off shots so wildly Serena suspected it was lucky he didn't shoot her and Chris before his nerve failed him and he span, taking off like an Olympic Sprinter down the right-side passageway, straight away from the attack on them all. He was panicking, not thinking, having gone that way since they hadn't been down there yet so it might even be worse, but she had no time to think about that now.

One of the dogs went for her throat with a noise coming from its ruined body sent straight from Hell as she fired off a last snapshot, one of the three remaining mobile Hellhounds being catapulted backwards as the bullet took a chunk out of its skull, taking the greater part of its brain with it. She slammed her right-side pistol into the second ones head with such force that she felt the crack of bone as the pistol barrel fractured its skull before its simple weight and mass literally bowled her over, sending the two of them tumbling, but she ended up on top. Dropping both guns she grabbed her knives and rammed them into the things chest up to the hilts even as the Hellhound clawed and bit at her in a feral frenzy.

Abruptly glad her uniform incorporated body armour, she realised that wrestling an already dead guard dog was a bad idea to begin with, not to mention impossible in theory, so she suspected that trying to simply strangle it with her bare hands, her preferred next action, would have no effect. She had no intention of waiting until either it disembowelled her or took her face off if she couldn't do that, though, so she tried the next best thing since stabbing the dog was having no apparent effect. Ripping her knives clear even as she fought past its claws, she put both blades down crosswise against its throat-then thrust down while drawing across with every bit of strength she could muster. The knives dug into the steel floor, but the Hellhounds head rolled away clear of its body entirely leaving a stream of thin blood. It stopped struggling at that point. She scrambled to her feet to see what had happened to the last mobile one, which had gone after Chris-a broad smile spread across her face.

Chris, smoking gun still in hand, had managed a clean dead-centre shot with only a split-second to aim and fire. The last Hellhounds head was a splintered mass of blood and bone. The big bullet had done even worse damage, having torn its way out of the left-side chest, pulping various internal organs on the way, but it all added up to one thing. The damned thing was dead, which was all that mattered. With barely a glance she retrieved her pistols and blew out the brains of the two injured Hellhounds, the only injury which seemed to actually stop them for good.

"Good timing, Chris, I was beginning to think that I'd have to do everything myself" she said, not even trying to hide the broad smile that etched itself across her face and in her eyes. Damn, but she had to admit that standing there, smoking gun in hand, muscles all tensed up, handsome face set in a look of concentration, the young man looked /nice/...

"Thanks" replied Chris, slowly, "I think. Just one thing: what-the-F-" he began, before being cut off by a very human, very scared scream-from the direction Stamper had fled. Serena and he glanced at each other, then he took off right behind her, her long-legged body and Olympic athletes physique letting her easily outrun him. She had to remind herself not to simply leave him gasping in her wake, but that didn't stop her from hearing him mutter "Later" under his breath...

Stamper fell over backwards, went head over heels, crashed to his side, scrambled upright desperately trying to aim-fired. The jaw disintegrated, taking half the left side of the face with it. The Zombies head snapped around, but it just looked straight back at Stamper even as awful deep red gore fell from the inside of its head to the floor, shuffling slow footsteps carrying it slowly closer to the terrified Scientist-Soldier. He screamed again, shot it in the heart at point-blank range, blood and gore mixed with organ parts exploding out of its back. It staggered, straightened and kept coming.

The language Stamper used at this would have made most of his few friends, who considered him incapable of any brutality, verbal or otherwise, faint in shock. He took a step backwards, another, then stopped one last time, aimed and fired-the Glock clicked on an empty chamber. Stamper nearly died of fright, but, panicked, did the worst thing he could have done-he dived forwards, under and past the Zombie, which wore the dark-green uniform of the Iraqi Republican Guard elite and still carried a holstered pistol, scrambled to his feet and sprinted away down the corridor, sheer terror lending wings to his feet. He ran so fast that he lost all sense of direction and time before skidding to a halt in front of one of five doors, all sealed by electrically powered double steel doors. All of them had blinking red lights above them and a keypad that required a code be entered before entry would be granted, but Stamper wasn't thinking rationally and tried to force the doors before trying the keypad, his agile fingers dancing across the keys.

Incredibly he managed to enter the Override Code with only his second attempt, the door-light flashing green before the outer door opened-a moment before the Biohazard symbol flashed up. Stamper, convinced in his own mind that the long-lost Zombie was still right behind him, paid no attention at all to this and was inside in a second, practically jumping up and down with nervous energy as he willed the outer door to close faster. If he'd been thinking rationally, he would have realised that he'd just gotten into an airlock. If he'd been thinking at all, he'd have made sure that he never got through to the inside...

Serena dropped the horribly injured Iraqi with a single snapped shot at full sprint, noting for future reference that the man appeared to have suffered massive trauma already, more than enough to kill him and then some. Racing down the passageway she abruptly came to five closed doors and stopped so sharply that anyone watching her would have blinked. Instantly her eyes were everywhere, missing nothing, absorbing every detail, her mind picking out and discarding every scrap of information-by the time Chris arrived, puffing slightly at trying to keep up with Serena, she knew where Stamper had gone.

Chris glanced about him, gritted his teeth and shook his head. "I hate this place already, anyone with this much need for secrets has far too much to hide. Did you see him? More to the point, did you see that.../thing/...back there?" he asked, pausing to catch his breath.

Serena just nodded, absorbed in studying a keypad. "The former, no, the latter, yes. Some drug combination, maybe? I've see men on PCP roll a car by ripping all of the muscles in their body without even knowing it before now. Quiet, need to focus" replied Serena, running her fingertips over the keypad.

Chris took the hint and barely even breathed for several long moments, then Serena sighed audibly. "Iraqi language which translates into English if needed, seven-digit code combining numbers and letters, possibly based on something personally relevant to the programmer. Lockdown in effect nullifies all base Codes excepting Emergency Override, which I do not know. How the blazes did /he/ get in here?" muttered Serena, not at all happy about what she was seeing.

Chris raised his hand, feeling like the class Clown but needing to ask. "Question: first, how do we know he went in here? Second, isn't the question not so much how /he/ did it but how /we'll/ do it?" he asked. Serena glanced at him for a moment, then looked back at the keypad.

"In the order they were asked... First, moisture, also known as sweat, on the keyboard keys, scuffs on the floor from his boots-and where do you think a frightened techie, that /is/ what he is, Chris, would go for safety in a panic? The nearest closed room with a door which locks and seals, preferably with a lab. Second, I can Hack with the Masters, all I need is time" she replied, tapping in a Code on the keypad and not liking the results. Chris stepped backwards, having nothing else to say, and let her work.

Serena tapped in a series of codes, fingers dancing over the keys with incredible speed and agility, but seemed to be getting nowhere fast. Loathe to distract her since they needed Stamper for his irreplaceable skills and knowledge concerning what they were here for, Chris didn't say a word. However, images of things which just couldn't be floated past his minds eye again and again and again: dead dogs tearing at people fighting for their lives with tooth and claw, a dead man standing up staring at him with horrifically pale eyes that saw almost nothing, every vital part torn, ruined and bloody a second before a bullet tore through an eye socket and out the back of its head, taking blood, brain, skin and skull with it. Dozens of dead people dismembered and terribly, horribly abused in almost every way imaginable, including some ways which no-one had any right to ever think of, things which made him feel his guts twist just to think about... This /could/ not be, /was/ not happening. If he admitted that it was, he would simply go insane, but those dogs were dead... No, they'd had some horrible disease that had done that to them, made them less than alive, more than dead, made them something else altogether, the Bio-Weapon, if that was what it was, loose in this place. That had to be it-but did that mean that all of them were going to end up like that too?

"Aaaaand.../action/!" announced Serena abruptly, as she evidently made a breakthrough. The door motors hummed and the outer door slid open slowly-a second before the Biohazard symbol flashed in the door Open/Closed flasher. Serena saw it and said something no one would repeat in polite company, loudly. Chris just stared at the symbol for a long second before it blinked off, the door switching to green to symbolise Open.

"Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle, what /NOW?!/" Chris almost shouted, throwing up his hands in utter frustration and a little fear at, yet again, the deadly unknown. Serena shot him a look that made him calm down in a second-he almost wanted to apologise for feeling fear, which was ridiculous-then stared at the airlock as though she was watching the end of the world from the front line.

"Alright, stay here and shoot anything you don't recognise, I'll be back shortly one way or another. The Code is 7321-X5 by the way" announced Serena, before stepping into the airlock chamber. The door motors immediately began to hum, the door beginning to close even as a startled Chris stared at Serena.

"But-" he began, almost moving to join her before she held out a hand to stop him. The way she did it would have given the President pause, Chris would later reflect with a smile.

"/NO/ buts, Chris, I'm doing this. Your on your own for now, watch your back" Serena replied, then she gave him a thumbs-up as the door slid shut. Just what, he couldn't help but wonder, was she getting herself into by doing this? What was he getting /himself/ into just by doing this thing...? Wh-did he hear something? Could he /smell/ something? The stench of recent violent death, rotting flesh, awful released internal gases, fresh blood dripping still... The scratch-clang of something big, heavy and metal being half-dragged, half-carried by something that wasn't quite steady on its feet with the weight. He raised his gun, wondering whether he should or could risk exploring further down the passageway, the direction the sound was coming from...

At about that same moment in time, he heard some very strange sounds-grunts, groans and gurgles, shuffling feet perhaps? Those sounds were coming from behind him... Worse yet, could he hear skittering sounds coming from behind all of the doors except the one Serena had gone through, maybe even in the walls? As though a great many very small something's were inside and trying to get out. It was time to admit it like a man, he was so scared that he was in serious danger of humiliating himself in front of Serena, an idea which he /could not/ tolerate in even the slightest way...

His almost-forgotten radio abruptly came on, nearly giving him a heart attack. "Reaper, this is Iceman. Are you out there somewhere? Come back" came Tom's voice...

/End of Chapter Six... Well, what do you think? All Reviews welcomed/


	7. Chapter 7

For all disclaimers: See Chapters 1 and 2.

Notes: this symbol denotes radio communication. A Y by itself is a page break.

CHAPTER SEVEN Lost Souls 

/June 8th 1996, central Iraq/

Serena didn't know, although she would find out later, that the airlock doors closing behind her sealed her off from the outside world as securely as a Bank Vault. The entire room was shielded to prevent any possible contamination of the experiments being conducted, including the blocking of signals coming from any electrical sources such as radio's and Mobile phones which could effect the massed computer banks function. Therefore she never directly received Tom's call-not that, as she would slowly admit long after the event, it would have made any difference in the end.

At the moment she saw what was in the room, though, these things were the last thing on her mind. For the kind of reason that never left the mind.

Strapped down inside the small white room, heads forced back by neck guards and braces running across the forehead, torso propelled up and out of the steel surgical chair by the angle of restraint added to the way the arms and legs were forced to sit, the remains of what had once been six people gave her an insight into the torments of Hell. Old, young and child, one of each, men and women, beyond that...beyond that, she wasn't sure what she was looking at precisely. Nor was she sure she wanted to know.

Skin was gone, chest cavities were exposed, bare bone gleamed amidst red flesh and dried blood, in one case a lower jaw was missing entirely. Eyes had been plucked out, fingers were broken, a trail of drool ran over the chin out of the mouth of the adult woman, the young man had screamed so much that he'd ripped his throat, blood still evident in his mouth that had dried into black flakes-she had to look away. These people, all of them, had been alive, sane and alive and alert, when this had been done. They had to have died in circumstances that defied description, suffering pain that simply could not be imagined, knowing that no-one was coming for them, that they were going to die, here in Hell, suffering the torments of every Damned Soul first, before they died...

She couldn't be in here, she couldn't be seeing this, she **_couldn't...!_** Slowly, it pierced her shell of sick disgust and loathing, as she closed her eyes and fought off old tears of pain that threatened to force their way out again and again and again, that there was someone else in the room. As she recovered her equilibrium and natural state of calm abruptly, her impossible level of self-control overriding in a moment any attempt at letting any part of her Soul show through where anyone might even possibly see or sense her doing so, as had to be the way, her senses filled in the gaps. She knew who it was before she even looked up at him to see the tears that she knew were running down his face as he slowly closed the glazed, long-dead eyes of the girl child before carefully, ever so carefully, stroking her hair back from her face. He was sobbing, too, that was evident to anyone within fifty yards of him in her opinion.

_Stamper_. The man she'd come to find and retrieve. Abruptly he'd solved all her problems, she just had to get out of here with him now and that was it.

"Serena...who would do something like this? Who _could_ do something like this?" he asked, slowly, unable to take his eyes off of the dead girl child. From the look on his face and in his eyes he was, unsurprisingly, taking this even less well than she was. That was to be expected, though. A man as cut off from the real world as Stamper, who had more interest in how Drugs and Chemicals functioned, who thought about scientific study as a lifestyle choice rather than as only part of what he did, would react about as well to real blood and gore as she would to getting a Crash Call at the last second to not blow Saddam Hussein's head off even as her finger tightened on the trigger.

The problem was that ageing monster wasn't standing ten feet away from her with a gun in his hand, that he hadn't been chased by monsters in an underground facility beneath a foreign country where the natives would likely skin them all alive if they were caught. That worried her, particularly given the fact that she had strong suspicions Stamper wasn't entirely stable upstairs, where it really counted in situations like this, for all his impressive brainpower. That made her walk very slowly, very carefully towards him, all of her weapons holstered, trying to appear unthreatening...

Everything happened so fast that she would later have to spend hours thinking through what had happened just to get everything straight in her mind. When she'd done that, considering what she'd already known at the time, she'd spend several more hours chastising herself for failing to think through all of the options and realise that what happened could have.

The girl child's head suddenly snapped forwards and she buried her teeth in Stamper's left hand, just as all of the bodies started to twist and turn, shift and move, moaning low and deep, dead, glassy eyes blinking open as ruined muscles tried to shift, broken bones cracking as dead flesh tore around them. Stamper's terrible scream would have woken the dead if the Virus they were all infected with hadn't already done it, the second before he raised his gun and blasted the corpse chewing on his hand at point-blank range in the head, shattering its skull into fragments and pulping the brain even as he ripped his hand free in a spray of blood. Bone fragments slashed through his face and neck, drawing blood everywhere even as they barely failed to blind him.

His face abruptly looked like a mask from a horror movie as blood poured from every cut, coating his face, throat, collar and upper chest. His screams turned into howls of animal fury and terror and he snapped off shots at all of the moving Corpses, Serena jumping away from the shooting in an attempt to avoid being shot even as Stamper blew chunks off the corpses with every bullet until he ran out of ammunition, still pulling the trigger with continual clicks. Four were no longer moving, two were still twitching feebly Serena automatically noticed-just before Stamper apparently heard her, spun around and pulled the trigger on an empty gun with the gun aimed at her heart.

Without blinking an eye, she moved, fast. She jumped forwards and straight-armed Stamper so hard that she felt rather than saw his jaw break as his head snapped backwards sharply before tackling him with a flying tackle that would have earned her a place with any American football team, throwing all of her weight and muscle into it.

She hit him in the chest with her full weight so hard he was lucky not to wind up with a broken back even as he went over backwards, arms flailing wildly, gun flying loose and away, until he hit his head with an awful thud against the floor. That should have finished him but it didn't and, apparently forgetting just who he was fighting, he writhed and fought her like a wild animal with a madman's strength, clawing and biting, left completely demented by the horrors of this place.

Unwilling to waste time or risk even bruises Serena thought fast, shaped her fist and shot a very precise strike to Stamper's throat. "Nerve Strike, place it perfectly you win, don't and they die" her instructors had always taught her at the ETC. To her mind, in this situation, especially given her skill in delivering such strikes, the action was warranted. It worked instantly, Stamper went as limp as a wet dishrag and Serena allowed herself the slightest sigh of relief before standing and finishing off the last two creatures with perfectly placed headshots from her pistols. Looked like she'd be carrying the stupid man out of here...

Y

In room 101, where Tom, Aaron and Webb were trapped in a storeroom under siege by the living dead, the situation was going from bad to worse. The Zombies were constantly pounding on the glass-evidently it was shatterproof after all, something Webb would be eternally grateful for-but they were also pounding the door, which was not locked and was occasionally shifting with the weight pressing against it added to the force. A metal cabinet, files and folders, books, a folding chair and Aaron's weight and muscle were all that was holding the door shut, but the room was about big enough to hold six people standing upright so Aaron was able to brace his feet against the rear wall easily, giving him all of the leverage he needed. The door wasn't opening while the big man was conscious, but they couldn't get out.

Tom would have sold his Soul for a shaped charge of C4 and a flamethrower at that particular moment, but they didn't have either and a miracle seemed unlikely, so they were, in his professional opinion, dead men. Chris Redfield had come back to him on his call to Serena and reported that she'd chased Stamper, who'd apparently completely lost it on coming face-to-face with the undead, into a sealed area where he suspected radio transmissions couldn't penetrate. He'd offered to go in and get her-then gone off the air with a yell of fright followed by rapid gunfire, finished by a blood-curdling scream. He was likely dead, Tom thought, and if he was, with Serena and Stamper AWOL, he, Aaron and Webb were going to die here. They had no escape, no way out and of their two best choices at the minute for getting out of this mess one was to commit suicide and hope the Zombies couldn't break in to desecrate their remains. The other was to short the electronic locking system in the room and manually force the door somehow, a possibility with Aaron involved if he could just not panic...

"Aaron, listen to me a minute. The doors electronic, right? That means that this room has a power source originating somewhere that's channelled through it to run the lights, door and any other necessities. If we can find it and short it couldn't we force the door by hand?" he asked, checking his gun again, the only sign of nerves he ever showed, as he glanced at the Engineer.

"Depends on the set-up, Tom, if this place has advanced comp-tech it /might/ automatically lock down every exit and entrance to any room where positive power and surveillance is lost, for no matter how much time. Also it might not, but even if it doesn't that door would stop a small car dead. The three of us couldn't open it if we killed ourselves using Crowbars and we don't have explosives. Just to add to the fun, the only electrical conduits I could reach and screw around with enough to do the job are in the main walls, which were cut off from entirely in here. At the distance we'd be working at that would mean fighting those things hand-to-hand for long enough to let me do the job. Apart from all of that, good idea" replied Aaron, still refusing to refer to the walking corpses outside as what they were, Zombies. It didn't bother Tom at all, everyone had their way of coping.

"I can do twelve rounds with the best, Aaron, I'll bet you Webb can too, so don't hazard a guess. We can take care of ourselves: how long will you /need/?" asked Tom, staring straight into Aaron's eyes. Aaron didn't flinch at Tom's ice-cold gaze- one thing to be glad of, Tom couldn't help but think. The big Engineer clearly had no trouble dealing with /humans/.

"A minute if I risk electrocution, but only that long because I've no idea what I'll be dealing with. The door?" Aaron replied, raising an eyebrow as his mind almost audibly raced behind his eyes running through a variety of strategies and ideas and plucking out the best, letting the rest slip away without a seconds thought. Tom just grinned back at him.

"I /always/ have a plan involving getting out alive, Aaron. Just give me thirty seconds to work-" Tom replied, a second before Webb cut in.

"On developing those all-new end-of-the-world survival skills?" Webb asked, suddenly, staring straight at something in the main room as Tom and Aaron turned to stare at him before seeing the expression on his face. They followed his gaze-then they saw it...

Tom and Aaron spoke as one in a second. "OH SH-!"

Y

"Reapers currently unavailable, Iceman. She can be reached if in an emergency situation, though. Is this required? Over" replied Chris, replying to Toms radio message before he failed to stifle a yelp of mixed fear and disgust as the latest Zombie came into view. He gritted his teeth. "Stand by, got a small problem here" he added.

The Zombie which came around the corner first had once been a middle-aged scientist in a white lab coat and light-green scrubs with little hair left. Now he was dead, missing the entire left side of his face, his skull being exposed inside rotting flesh and ragged skin, the eye socket being dark and empty. He also had a knife sticking out of his ribs over his heart, a broken ankle-and a fire axe, bloodstained, that he was evidently using as a crutch. It would have made a nasty mess out of anyone it had hit, Chris couldn't help but think...

Without blinking an eye at this new horror, even as its ruined mouth opened and it hissed at him with the wet gargle of sound only a throat and vocal cords as ruined as its could produce, he smoothly sighted on its empty eye and puts its brains out the back of its head like a professional, with a single shot. It wasn't that the things didn't frighten him any longer, he reflected even as the brass shell casing dinged against the metal floor, it was just that there was only so much horror the human mind could handle before it started to shut down just to preserve your sanity. He'd hit that point with the hell hounds attack, now he just dealt with them as they came, numb to everything inside. The only wish he had left, the objective in his life now, was to get out of this whole nightmare alive-by whatever means necessary. Not that he'd abandon the others under any circumstances...

He smoothly turned and aimed as the moaning from behind drew closer, shuffling feet dragging over steel floor. He got his first good look at them-and the full, sick horror hit him all over again, making his stomach churn for a long moment before he forced it down. Five more, four lab techs and one in a suit, one tech a woman the rest men, one tech was missing its left arm while all of them had suffered awful fatal injuries at some point-the one in the suit still had a long-handled razor stuck in his slit throat, the front of his suit and shirt still being soaked in thick red blood.

/NO/ problem.

The one with the razor in its throat went first, a huge chunk of grey matter exiting the back of its head accompanied by fragments of skull after he put a bullet through its eye with a perfect shot. It was still collapsing when he decapitated the second, his shot taking its throat out to such an extent that he could clearly see the damaged spinal column amidst thin strands of red flesh. The things head slowly fell right off of it with a sick wet crack as it went over backwards, slamming into the floor with an awful thud.

The third was the woman, a huge bite wound looking to have been made by human teeth despite the missing chunk of flesh in her left forearm. He shot her in the heart with the powerful handgun just to see the effect, the shell blasting right through her at thirty foot-she staggered, then came on slowly, a hole three inches across in her chest. Too bad. He centred his aim right between her eyes and pulled the trigger-the "_chikt_" sound of his main weapon misfiring was, all of a sudden, the worst sound he'd ever heard.

He felt all the blood drain from his face as he instantly moved to fix it, recognising the problem as a shell stuck in the breach in a second. He worked the autoloader, frantically shook the gun but nothing happened. He glanced up and realised that the Zombies would be right on top of him in ten seconds flat. He /did not/ have time for this. He dropped his Desert Eagle, pulled his 9MM Backup and clicked off the safety.

He centred on the same Zombie and shot her in the head, right between the eyes. Unfortunately his Backup didn't have the punch of his Primary and the thing staggered but, weaving, kept coming. He had to fire three more times, all headshots, swearing at increasing volume, to finally drop it. He was automatically starting to back away as the Zombies got so close that they were beginning to reach out for him with bloody, decaying hands and arms, but didn't immediately realise that he wasn't backing away fast enough.

He shot the last but one creature in the eye, but it only staggered before coming on more slowly. It took four shots to drop it, since his hands were starting to shake with fear and nerves he couldn't suppress. He snapped around to face the last one-just as its decaying fingers touched his neck and grasped, the thing abruptly lunging for his throat. He barely had time to let out a bloodcurdling shriek before he threw himself backwards, just barely avoiding the attack only to trip and land on the floor with the Zombie on top, the air exploding from his lungs as his gun scattered out of his hands, the impact breaking it loose. The Zombie clawed at him any way it could in a moment, trying to rip off pieces of flesh from his arms and face, take out his eyes while he tried to kick it off or simply damage it so badly it would just stop trying to bite him.

He got his forearm under its chin and lifted its snapping head and jaws away from him, but couldn't hold its arms off too. He heaved his arm up and loose for a moment, forcing its arms aside-then poked it in both eyes with his fingertips. It squealed, then went crazy, blind but far from dead, leaving Chris trying not to hurl with two eyeballs on his fingertips. This only made it more dangerous, though, as it flailed around like a wild thing, feral anger and rage threatening to maim or mutilate him at any second as he fought to hold off its bony limbs without complete success. He couldn't even throw the thing off, it was lying on him literally, he couldn't get any leverage. He head-butted it, smashing its nose, but it didn't even react.

Out of options, he finally succeeded in grabbing both of its flailing arms and tried to force it aside and over off of him using the leverage it gave him. It didn't work, the thing was far stronger than it looked and Chris found himself out-muscled and out of position withy no hope of escape. He'd been in one to many barroom brawls to not know what happened next, leverage wasn't enough, not against this kind of fury and power. The thing was going to bite his face off in seconds to add to all of the scrapes and small cuts he already had-its brains flew out of its mouth, spraying him with unspeakable substances in the moment before it collapsed, as limp as a wet dishrag, right on top of him.

He blinked, rolled the dead-again corpse off of him, rolled over to his hands and knees the other way-and threw up, violently, twice. Then, wiping feebly at his mouth, he sat up and glanced around-to see the striking figure of Serena Baccarin standing just outside the door to the room she'd been in, an unconscious Stamper slung over her shoulders in a fireman's lift. She was still holding the gun she'd killed the Zombie with using a single shot, still aiming it just in case even as dark humour flickered in her eyes. "Looked as though you needed a hand, Chris..." she remarked, a slight smile on her face at his battered appearance. If he'd had the strength left after what he'd just been through, he'd have thrown an extremely dirty look at her for that comment...

/End of Chapter Seven. Yes, I know that its short, but I have a lot to cover in the next chapter, this is just setting things up... So what does everyone think? All Reviews welcomed/


	8. Chapter 8

For all disclaimers: See chapters 1 and 2.

Note: This symbol denotes radio communication. A Y stands for a page break-blame , you don't get them otherwise.

CHAPTER EIGHT Lost Souls 

/June 8th 1996, central Iraq/

On hearing Tom's call as relayed by Chris, Serena Baccarin stood very still and quiet for a long moment. Then, without blinking an eye or even attempting to wake up the unconscious Stamper, who was still hung across her shoulders, let alone explain just what had happened in the sealed room, she ran. She ran straight towards the location of Tom, Webb and Aaron so fast that Chris Redfield actually lost sight of her, puffing and panting like a steam engine as he tried to simply keep her in sight. He was in pretty good shape, he knew this for a fact. Serena existed on a different level of physical development to him, he now knew that for a fact as well, as though he hadn't before...

Y

Serena's sharp ears, so sharp some people had been known to joke that she was part Wolf sometimes, caught the slightest traces of a "_Thumph_" of sound in the near distance, as though something very big and heavy had just collided with something else solid with considerable force. If she was any judge, the object which had been collided with had lost and was now lying somewhere in pieces on the floor, trampled underfoot. Not heavy enough for explosives-and she'd know. No firearm she'd ever heard the report of either-and she knew a _lot_ of those. Internal collapse due to structural damage? Possibly, but then what could cause the kind of damage that would make part of the roof or a wall collapse short of combat or deliberate human intent? An Act of God?

A Zombie abruptly loomed in front of her, stepping out of a doorway with a door hanging loose in it it had evidently broken the lock of. With no time to waste she used the unconscious Stamper as a weapon, slamming his feet into its chest so hard she heard ribs snap before a spinning high strike smashed it completely off of its feet. She finished it off herself with a precise boot heel to the back of the head, her strike smashing its neck and nearly ripping its head off even as its skull fractured everywhere, brain spilling out. She flicked her boot to get the worst off before sprinting on.

She guessed the route they'd have taken, but lack of choice made it easy. What made it complicated was what she saw when she got there. It took a great deal to make her /really/ angry-killing was just something she did because she had a talent for it-but that sight did it...

Y

/_Ten minutes earlier_/

"-IT!" shouted Tom and Aaron together, even as, in another part of the complex, Professor Robert Creig smiled at the sight on CCTV as his little prize woke up. It occurred to him that the Hound had never been field-tested before against armed, trained professional soldiers. Well, better late than never...

The creature that had been held out of view on the stretcher suspended from the ceiling, where an awful stench had been coming from that no part of any of the three men's minds wanted to remember even remotely it had been so indescribably awful in nature, was moving. That it wasn't your standard Zombie Tom had no doubt a moment later, as its steel restraints shattered with an audible crack of overstressed metal being suddenly and forcefully snapped right out of the stretcher, bits of metal striking in all directions like Shrapnel. Webb, who had been staring out of the window in what seemed to be some sick fascination with the Undead trying to break in, had seen it shift first-it also quickly became clear that he'd gotten something of a look at it as it started to shift, to. The awful expression on his face said the rest.

The thing on the suspended stretcher rolled off of it and hit the floor a second later on its feet with perfect balance, absorbing a ten-foot fall with the kind of ease most people displayed taking a step forwards on the straight and narrow. It stood up straight right in front of them, then looked directly at Webb. Webb's expression already defied description at this point, when the thing looked at him he simply didn't have an expression any more.

Six foot tall, humanoid with a long, lean form, the things stood, moved and looked like your standard Bipedal _Homo Sapiens Sapiens_ as far as that went. It was the rest of it that made people scream until they died. Its eyes were so deep-sunken into its face they were no more than brilliant dots of lights inside its skull, it had no lips, its teeth and raw red gums being terribly evident as drool slipped from its mouth. Utterly bald, it was missing skin entirely, being no more than thick, heavy muscle, ropes of sinew and tendrils of meat wrapped around a heavy skeleton. Its internal organs were visibly pulsing underneath its wraparound flesh and muscle, even though parts of it were black with rot and decay and its movements were..._odd_, somehow, its too-long arms and legs making it seem like a Simian crossed with a Human crossed with something else...

It opened its mouth and screamed.

The sound didn't belong on Earth. Webb nearly died the second he heard it, every single part of his brain crashing like a computer with a Virus as the sound drilled into his mind and ripped out his sanity by the roots. As a catastrophic last-ditch attempt to save his mind his brain simply shut down, trying to block out /everything/ as he fell into peaceful darkness...

Aaron had immense reserves of both physical and mental stamina, one had to have in his job to both withstand and absorb everything that came your way in every way shape and size all day, every day. He was the kind of man who could and would withstand any and every kind of pressure to get the job, because doing so was part of the job and he /could/ do it. His eyes widened to their possible extent, blood trickled from both nostrils and both ears, his breathing accelerating to the point that he should have had a Heart Attack, only his exceptional physical resilience saving his life. He stood and took the assault like the soldier he was.

Tom had encountered sonic weapons before, he had Special Forces training to deal with pain, to force aside physical and mental disability to enable him to continue to function. Unlike anyone else, other than Serena, he knew what to do-not that he'd ever expected, ever imagined that he might actually have to use it like this. He took a long moment to concentrate, to focus absolutely on a single point. Then he let his mind go free entirely, drifting away from his own consciousness as he escaped deep into a Delta Trance. Blood trickled from his ears and nostrils, a blood vessel ruptured inside his cheek, blood dripping from his lips, but the only symptoms he suffered were physical and his body, so tough and toned it was a weapon by itself, had withstood worse. He was ready for what came next.

The Howl was an Ares Hounds main weapon, a literally physically and mentally devastating sonic weapon built into it that could and would kill if anything organic was exposed to it for too long. The other enhancements built into it were, however, entirely physical. The Hound leapt forwards-and crashed into the Shatterproof glass protecting the three men inside the small room, which buckled in its frame as though hit by a small car. Supposedly unbreakable glass cracked in a thousand places, instantly rousing Tom from his trance even as a groggy Aaron slowly became aware of the threat. Too late, as he nearly died when the Hounds fist smashed right through the glass as though powered by massive hydraulic pistons and slammed dead centre into his chest.

It was like taking a full-frontal shot from a battering ram mounted on a speeding car. Aaron was thrown backwards with the kind of strength nothing the Hounds size had any business possessing, ribs snapping, his left arm breaking even as his head hit the wall with an awful crack. He slumped to the floor in a moment of complete agony, a long, dark streak of blood trailing down the wall from where his head had connected as he groaned audibly.

All he could do was glare hatred at the creature as it kicked out the remaining glass and stepped inside-Tom levelled his huge Magnum pistol at the things head so close that it pressed into the bone. He pulled the trigger before the Hound even registered what was happening, the powerful guns shot simply ripping the Hounds head clean off, spraying meat, muscle, bone and brain in all directions. The thing was dead before it hit the floor. Tom didn't even blink an eye as he spat on it before blowing its heart out for good measure. "Eat _/that_/, shmuck" he muttered, never having been the type to warn someone before he killed them.

A Zombie stuck its head through the opening before trying to advance over broken glass, cutting its feet to ribbons as it did. Tom shot it in the face at point-blank range with his Magnum, the blast catapulting the dead-again Corpse back out of the room with such force that it knocked over every Zombie nearby. Unfortunately there were still more than twenty left and the one's left standing didn't even break stride as rotting, broken hands and arms reached for him in a moment. He switched weapons back to his AK-47 and fired off a series of controlled bursts, but he almost emptied his magazine to no real effect as the Zombies staggered backwards or momentarily fell only to recover and start moving forwards again.

He used language that would have made his long-dead mother die of shame all over again-there was no way he could stop these things by himself. He quickly resorted to the only other option he had left, kicking Webb in the ribs to wake him up while holding off the Undead however he could. "WEBB! WAKE UP YOU USELESS-!" he roared, too busy staying alive to think up any really creative insults...

Tom's screams somehow penetrated Webb's almost comatose brain, echoing around inside the other man's mind. Webb feebly stirred, twitched-then his eyes shot open and he screamed, hideously, Tom having to focus very hard to ignore him. A second later he sprang to his feet, grabbed his M-16 and started shooting in blind fury at head height on fully automatic, raking the Zombies with a brutal hail of lead. Several fell and not all of them got up again. A Zombie dog, a Doberman, appeared. He kicked it in the head so hard he snapped its lower and upper jawbones as well as driving his boot right into and through its brains. He staggered as it fell, nearly falling-then pulled his Desert Eagle and snapped off shots as though he was on a Shooting Range, perfect headshots dropping Zombies left and right. The Desert Eagle ran dry, so he grabbed the nearest Zombie with his bare hands, viciously head butted it then grabbed it in a professional hold and smoothly broke its neck. He leapt out to get the rest a second later.

Tom went out right behind him, emptying his AK-47 with headshots to drop a couple of Zombies following Webb's lead. Out of ammo with his main weapon, he pulled his Magnum and blasted everything within three feet and dead in the head, staying close to the demented Webb, dropping six more. In mere minutes of fighting he and Webb had cut the Zombie numbers in half, not bad going Tom couldn't help but think. Then he saw the horse, just as his Magnum ran dry...

Tom pulled his hunting knife and dived left as the horse thundered in, rearing at the last moment to flash lethal, heavy hooves and snap at him with black teeth, red eyes glaring at him. He slashed his knife across the upper left foreleg and the leg buckled, but its strength wasn't anything close to ordinary and it forced its way into another assault with three legs, body slamming him as he ducked another Zombie human trying to bite him. The horses weight and mass cracked a rib, catapulting both him and his other attacker from their feet, leaving him and the Zombie tangled in each other's arms as they rolled over and over.

He wrenched clear and rammed the knife right into the Zombies brain from under its jaw, killing it, tore loose of the rotting dead-again corpse and threw himself over again and again in a frantic roll as the horse tried to stamp on him. He fought like a madman to get a clear shot without further injury and managed to nail its lower right foreleg. The horse collapsed to its knees with a clang, its front legs not functioning, but it still tried to bite and flail at him. His final assault cleanly severed its spinal column at the base of the skull, killing it instantly.

Jumping backwards to get a wall behind him, he holstered his Magnum and pulled out his knuckledusters. He didn't have ammunition to waste, after all... It occurred to him that the wound he'd received from the woman "Corpse" at the start of all this should have congealed and stopped bleeding by now, but it still ran freely with thick red blood...

Webb swept through the Zombies like a madman, crashing through the rotting Corpses where they stood, punching out the one in front of him with a crack of breaking bone as it fell. Taking his M-16 in his hands by the barrel like a club he flailed it around as though he knew what he was doing, the guns steel and wood frame making for a potent weapon as limbs and heads snapped and cracked with awful regularity. The Demented Webb halfway had himself convinced that he was wielding a Baseball bat against a group of street Thugs before reality finally fought its way back into his brain and he realised, with cold, hard clarity, that he was cut off in the midst of the fifteen odd remaining Undead with only Tom, who was fighting hand-to-hand, for Backup. In a moment, he made the only decision he could-he span and ran for his life back into the secure room Aaron was still slumped in.

"WEBB?!" bellowed Tom, not believing what he was seeing as Webb openly panicked and ran for his life-just before Tom's momentary lapse of concentration let the last Zombie dog, an Alsatian, sink its teeth deep into his left leg. Tom roared in pain, before slashing down and across with his knife so hard that he literally decapitated the dog, its severed head left biting into his wound alone. A Knuckleduster punch smashed enough bones that its fell away, but Tom abruptly found himself limping, alone and badly outnumbered with at least fifteen Zombies left relatively intact and mobile, three, maybe four, still being dangerous. He wished Serena was here, she'd have taken this many bad guys apart with her bare hands in a minute flat, Zombies or not...

Stepping backwards, away from the advancing Zombies who weren't chasing Webb or going after the immobilised Aaron, Tom sheathed his knife and dropped the used clip in his AK-47, slapping home a new one and ramming a round in position in one long, smooth movement. It had to be perfect, he'd only get one chance at this. He raised the gun as the first one came on and aimed at its face, dead centre. He grinned, he'd had worse odds. "Eat /THIS/, Mother-!" he screamed, pulling the trigger and blasting the nearest Zombies brains out the back of its head, followed by its pulped teeth since he'd shot it in the mouth, the roar of automatic fire drowning out his last words...

In the secure room-not that it was any more-Aaron saw Webb and Tom charge the Undead from behind a red veil made of pain and blood, shock simply finishing his ability to move. He was absolutely sure he had a serious skull fracture on top of broken ribs and possible internal injuries, not to mention a broken arm, so he wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. Maybe he was /never/ going anywhere again given the state he was in, a cynical part of his mind made him think... Then Webb turned and, smashing Zombies out of his way through brute force, leapt into the room.

Without pausing, he ejected the empty clip from his M-16, slapped home a new one, turned-and killed the nearest humanoid creature with a single perfect shot between the eyes as it reached for him. That one was already in the room, so Webb smoothly switched position with a textbook perfect shift and turn and dropped the next one too. He made no move at all to get back outside or do anything but defend himself and his position-even as the sound of automatic gunfire erupted outside, forcing through the pain to even Aaron's slowed brain that Tom was cut off, surrounded and almost certainly badly injured outside. Screw /_that_/, Aaron thought in a moment.

Everything hurt, but that didn't mean it didn't work. He couldn't use his Combat Shotgun with only one functional arm, even he wasn't that strong-so what? He had other options. Besides which, as far as he was concerned Webb could Damn well look after himself for the rest of his short life as far as he was concerned. Tom was one of those "Cold Fish" bastards you occasionally met in the forces, yes, the kind you never ask questions who always get the job done, the type who don't have social lives or families, but he'd still take that man nine times out of ten over a scumbag like Webb. Webb was the type of career military who had got where he was by screwing over everyone who got in the way by fair means or foul, that he had some talent barely mattered. With someone like that to watch your back, you'd be advised to make out your Will before the mission as far as Aaron and most people he knew were concerned.

Simple willpower got him on his feet, his entire body trembling with the strain, sweat running down him all over as though he was in the Sahara in Arctic gear. White-faced and almost screaming in pain, his jaw clenched so hard that it hurt, he pulled his Desert Eagle and stepped forwards. Webb heard the heavy tread behind him over the heavy rattle of gunfire and risked a glance behind him-his jaw dropped at the sight of Aaron on his feet. Without blinking an eye, Aaron pistol-whipped Webb out of the way by slashing his weapon across the back of Webb's head with a resounding thud then stepped over the writhing man as calmly and steadily as he could.

He heard a final rattle of gunfire from Tom's last position, turned and started shooting his way forwards. He dropped six more Zombies before his clip ran dry, after which he punched the nearest in the face so hard that its neck broke and it fell too. He caught a glance of a bloody, badly wounded Tom barely standing, trying feebly to fend off two attacking creatures. The three others still upright and moving were coming for him and he was in no state to even and try and stop them hand-to-hand. Nonetheless, he switched grips on his weapon and stood ready to use it like a club, he was going to go down fighting no matter what...

Five sharp shots rang out, the creatures all fell in a heap with chunks of their skulls and large pieces of their brains missing. Aaron slowly registered the fact that, as darkness clawed at the edges of his vision, Webb was standing next to him, his M-16 smoking even as blood ran down his cheeks and the back of his head. Before he could even sense the movement Webb slammed the butt of his M-16 into his stomach, so hard that he came within inches of cracking his skull against the floor as he doubled over and fell to his knees with a "Whoof" of expelled air exploding from his lungs-only the furious Webb followed through with a double-handed strike, hands on barrel and butt of his M-16, smashing the guns metal centre up and into Aaron's jaw with an awful crack. Aaron felt his jaw go with an awful finality as everything went utterly black-and wondered whether this was what Death felt like...

Tom had been bitten on both arms and forearms, left shoulder and neck as he was overwhelmed by sheer numbers trying to hold off the Zombies. He was bleeding heavily, badly bruised and-worryingly-didn't feel at all right, as though something was running through his veins that had no business being there, something that was making him feel very sick. His eyes were bloodshot-the pain told him that-and his eyesight wasn't right, he could feel that, nothing seemed as distinct as it should have been. He seemed to be almost shut off from the world, as though he was swimming underwater, noises, even feelings fading in and out. He'd been seriously injured and lost a great deal of blood in the field before now, he knew the difference between the effects of injury and other ailments. Whatever was effecting him it was something else and, although he'd never admit it, that terrified him. Given the state of the human remains in this place, the kind of weapon they were here to deal with... Just what kind of muck was floating around inside of him...?

Despite everything he didn't miss Webb hit Aaron so hard that he knocked the seriously injured man unconscious and over like a felled tree, Aaron crashing to the ground with a massive thud. He just wasn't in any state to do anything about it, or he'd have broken both of Webb's arms at the very least. He barely even noticed the blood on Webb's face and in his hair, even as Webb reloaded his Desert Eagle and pointedly finished off the remaining incapacitated but still dangerous Zombies with perfect headshots. Webb reloaded his M-16 as well, checking both weapons before walking over to stand in front of the doors. He didn't move for a long moment-then, even as Tom's failing eyesight finally picked up the red dot that signified a miniaturised Security Camera over the door, the door lock symbol shifted to green and the heavy, massive door swung slowly open.

He was hanging onto consciousness by his fingernails, but Tom knew deep down that they'd all been screwed the moment this happened. Nothing wanted to work, he was only on his feet because he'd locked his knees and braced himself against the wall, his back pressing against cold steel, but he tried to speak. His voice was a whisper, he felt blood in his throat and knew no one at all had heard him. He coughed, choked-spat out the blood, this time managed a weak shout. "WEBB...!" he called out, his voice barely carrying at all.

Webb heard him, stopped at the door, turned around and smiled the kind of reptilian smile that said everything. Only he was going to get out of here, because none of the rest of them had a damn clue and he knew what all of them didn't. /He/ was the /survivor/...

Webb pulled his Desert Eagle and, without even the slightest hesitation, shot out Tom's left knee, muscle, bone and blood erupting everywhere. Tom was too far gone to do anything but howl even as he collapsed, the only thing keeping him conscious a jagged edge of pain suddenly searing through his mind and body. Webb disappeared and the door began to close-Tom saw a chance for at least one of them to survive.

With fumbling fingers he slipped one, two, three rounds into his Magnum before he ran out of time. Aiming as best he could at the locking plate, where the lock had to seal and electronics were almost certainly concealed, darkness and light fought for dominion over his failing mind and body. Biting his lip caused new pain, enough to keep him awake that little bit longer. With a quick Prayer, he cocked the gun-then fired three times straight at the place he'd chosen from memory. A hideous screech sounded, followed by an explosion of bright sparks and torn-up wiring ripping loose even he couldn't miss. Evidently he'd succeeded, but there was only one way to be sure...

As everything slowly fell away from him for the last time, he rolled his ruined body over so he fell to his chest on the floor. Dragging his mutilated leg, he fought his way across the floor, digging in with fingers, fingernails, the toes in his good leg, even elbows and knees. He didn't notice the thick trail of red blood that traced behind him, he barely even noticed the door when his head smacked into it, but managed to find the edge by instinct and scraped his way around it. He'd been right, it wasn't locked, or even shut. He kept going as long as he could, making it six feet down the corridor before he could only roll helplessly onto his back, breathing blood in lungs flooding with it, everything fading away.

The slightest of smiles crossed his face, he'd always known violence would kill him.

Taking the deepest breath left to him, he took a final satisfaction in reciting the Shiloh just before he died...

Seconds later, Serena Baccarin arrived at a sprint and took in the awful sight in front of her. She dropped Stamper without even registering the fact, his head bouncing off of the steel floor as he slammed down to Earth. Chris Redfield arrived a little later-and simply stopped dead.

It was the first time he ever saw Serena cry...

/End of Chapter Eight. All Reviews welcomed/


	9. Chapter 9

For all disclaimers: See Chapters 1 and 2.

Note: Graphic violence and adult language is used in this Chapter. Read on and you were warned. This symbol denotes radio communication.

CHAPTER NINE Lost Souls 

/June 8th 1996, central Iraq/

"He's dead, he's going to /die/. I'm going to cut him into component parts, slice those into hams and feed them to every carnivore I can find. I'm going to grind his bones to powder, mix them with cement and drive over the road their part of every weekend for the rest of my life. I'm going to burn down his home with everything he ever loved inside it and throw in every family photograph. I'm going to track down everyone he's ever loved and torture them until they can't bear to live in any country he ever set foot in they'll hate him so much for what he's made me do. I'm going to keep his eyes and his organs in a jar together and send photographs to everyone he knew not here now for as long as I live every year I live. I'm going to slice off the top of his head and make him eat bits of his own brain-" Serena Baccarin was ranting, she was angry as Hell and she knew it, but she didn't care.

She'd just seen the bloody, mangled remains of one of the few real friends she'd /ever/ had in the world breathe his last in front of her before dying in a pool of his own blood. She'd had to walk over to him, her boots splashing in his blood, and shoot him in the head to make sure that he didn't rise again as one of the abominations they'd been fighting their way through since they'd gotten in here. He'd spasmed briefly, his body jerking, then gone away forever...

She'd walked into a room full of the brutalised, shredded, horrifically mangled remains of people young, middle-aged and old, of animals large and small. Blood was hanging from the ceiling in huge deep, dark-red drips, sliding down the wall in a way which suggested it had been forced between every single one of the joins and against every surface for maximum effect by an act of obscenity. Blood drenched the floor and every metal stretcher, mixed in with scattered physical remains. Fingers, toes, arms and legs, bones, bits and pieces of everyone and everything were everywhere. Shattered glass was obvious in a back room, a buckled metal door indented with the shape of human fists having been blocked from the inside. It took no guesses at all to think through what had happened or where the doomed men had tried to take cover. It hadn't mattered at all either, as the tormented, seriously injured Aaron had managed to haltingly let them know once he'd recovered consciousness, aided by Smelling Salts Serena had practically forced up his nose.

Tom Walker was dead, Aaron was effectively a cripple and as good as immobilised, incapacitated at the very least. Webb was a traitor, which simply meant that she was going to begin by cutting off all of his fingers and both thumbs when she found him before she went to work on the larger parts. Stamper, who had finally woken up, had thrown up everything he'd ever eaten on sight, including some blood, then finally made his way to the back room to go through all of the documents, records and anything else that had been stored there on the off-chance that there could be something useful. Chris...Chris had lost all colour on seeing the inside of the room, but had recovered somewhat and was now kneeling by the battered and bloody Aaron, just like her.

She carried a pair of gauze surgical gloves in a sealed pack in with her gear for emergencies-she was qualified to perform Field Surgery, among other things-and was now wearing them as she probed the big mans injuries with a touch so gentle that almost anyone she knew wouldn't have believed her capable of if they hadn't seen it. There was a good reason for that, but that was her business.

In her time she'd killed a man by gutting him with her bare hands and stabbed a man in the heart while kissing him to stop his screams. She'd killed a man with a set of car keys, garrotted another with his own shoelaces and bitten out another's windpipe. She was all about death, suffering in a number of cases too, but she was, in the end, an Assassin, a killer-Death, truth be told. She'd killed and she'd killed and she'd killed with her own two hands, with things held in them of every size, shape and description. She didn't have blood on her hands any more, she'd taken the Devils Shilling and wallowed in death, blood and violence with the worst. She /was/ the worst, but she was incapable of processing just what she was seeing here. Just because you did your duty for your country and were capable of any act to get the job done you didn't just become evil, no matter what you did. This place stank of madness, pain and death in ways that turned even her stomach-she just didn't show it, of course. Only those as sick, twisted and Fucked in the mind as anyone you could ever meet were capable of anything like this, but this...this was a special form of evil. It reminded her of why she was there...

You sell your Soul to save the world-after your country, of course-and you have some right to expect reasonable return, or at least she thought so. What had happened here would have finished her Faith forever if she still believed in anything, but the only trust she had in anything any more was her own skill. A Patriot she might be, but General Lucas Moralto and his like set the standard she aspired to. To think that he might even possibly have willingly sent along on a mission like this a man like Webb, a piece of shit who should have been ground up in a mincing machine while alive and fed to pigs if Aaron was telling the truth, something which she had no reason to doubt... That man had to die, and she was going to kill him. Finishing with Aaron, she forced herself to calm down as she looked him in the eyes.

"Alright, Aaron, listen carefully. You have, I am certain, a skull fracture, a bad Concussion, at least one broken rib, three more cracked at best and an arm broken in two places, compound fractures. On top of that, your breastbone is cracked and if it breaks it could stab you in the heart or lungs and kill you. If you fall asleep or pass out in this state you will never, ever wake up, matters are that simple. That, of course, is excluding a strong possibility of internal bleeding given your impact injuries, those I simply can't properly diagnose under these circumstances... but at best, a basic examination suggests you have significant bruising to your kidneys and possibly your stomach. I'd add spinal trauma as well depending on just how hard and where you were hit. If you try to move you could be committing suicide, but we can't carry you or leave you here. Its your decision" she said, pulling the blood-slick gloves off and placing them in a disposal bag she replaced in her uniform, kept especially for such circumstances.

Aaron just looked at her with a face where every last shred of his agony was visible in his eyes and on his drawn face, a look on his face that told her what she already knew. He grinned through the pain somehow, blood-streaked face and bloody teeth making him look as though someone had worked him over with a straight razor after kicking him in the chest as hard as they could a few times. Despite it all, his eyes were bright and shining with resolute determination and intelligence-and stubbornness. She had to admire that, stupid or not in his state. Personally she'd have gone looking for some Zombies with a Hand Grenade and nuked them with her in a last blaze of glory...

"I'm too young to die, so I'll come along, thanks" he managed, speaking slowly around his broken jaw. Then he slowly winked. "Besides, I saw what that asshole did. I'm going to live to twist his head right off if it's the last thing I ever do..." he added.

"Only if you get there before me" replied Serena, smiling back. "Now hold on, I have to set and splint this arm of yours or you could loose it the state your in. Stamper, did you see anything in there we could use to splint an arm?" she called out. They all had to wait several long moments before the evidently distracted man answered.

"This cabinet has metal struts, that any good?" he called back, sticking his head around the corner and glancing at her even as he scanned the documents he was holding. She nodded and he disappeared again just as quick. Without being asked, Chris rose and went into the storeroom. Grunts of effort sounded soon after, then a distinctly metal _crack_ sounded like a gunshot. A second followed soon afterwards, then he came back holding two pieces of slightly warped metal strut which were both a little shorter than the massive Aaron's long arm. Fortunately, his guess estimate had actually been very accurate. She didn't bother to explain what she was doing when she ripped off Aaron's shirt and started slicing it into bandages with her knife, although she couldn't stop herself from glancing quickly at his magnificently well-developed chest muscles. He noticed, but didn't make anything of it, in too much pain to care.

She wrapped Aaron's Desert Eagle with a piece of cloth around the barrel and put it in front of his mouth. He bit down on it without hesitation, hard. Good, that was the point. She shifted to directly over Aaron's injured arm, placed her hands both side of the first and lowest break and looked Chris Redfield in the eyes as he crouched opposite her. "Get a real good grip and hold him down until I say otherwise, but watch his chest, clear?" she asked. Chris nodded yes, so she turned to look Aaron in the eyes. His face and gaze were full of pain, but she also saw hope there, along with a distinct feeling of faith-in her, if she was any judge. He trusted her...she didn't know whether to pity him or wish him luck. Certainly/she/ couldn't be relied upon...

"Aaron, I'm going to fix these breaks now. I don't have enough in the way of Painkillers to calm you down first, so I'll do it after. Until then, don't crack a tooth when you bite down on the damn gun, okay?" she asked. Aaron looked at her for a long second, then nodded.

"Was that a /joke, Miss Enigma?" he stage whispered, meaning everyone in the room heard him. She just smiled, flexed her fingers-and snapped the bone back into place with an almighty wrench. Aaron howled, a muffled shriek coming from his mouth past the gun. His muscles and veins abruptly stood out from him like steel cables and his good arm jerked wildly, nearly lifting Chris right off the floor, his feet scratching the ground beneath. Chris held on through sheer physical determination, giving her time to quickly set the other break with dextrous fingers and a powerful grip, muscles standing out on her arms as Aaron's own massively muscled physique worked against her. She succeeded despite that, of course.

Aaron had bitten the inside of his mouth, fresh blood evident on his lips, but, trembling aside, he was fine otherwise. She drew and loaded a syringe with a Painkiller, picked one of the still distinct veins standing out on Aaron's arm and injected him with it, tossing the syringe away afterwards. Once the trembling stopped and Aaron had calmed down, she used the metal struts and sliced apart uniform shirt pieces to efficiently and professionally bind up his arm in a set position. Moments later, he smiled at her slowly. It was all she needed to see to convince her he'd be all right, at least for now. She replaced the Desert Eagle in his hip holster after reloading it for him.

She motioned to Chris to grab his good arm, bent down and, arms around his waist, on the count of three slowly helped Aaron to his feet. Somehow, he didn't scream in agony despite nearly biting through his lower lip.

He stood up on shaking legs, braced himself and shook his head to clear it. "I'm fine" he said, slowly and clearly, distinctly, so that they could certainly understand. Then added, so quietly that Chris missed it but Serena didn't, "But I have been better..."

"Ow... hey, guys-er, and lady?" called Stamper, coming out of the back room with a handful of documents held in both hands. He paused to rub his eyes with the back of his hand before going on, as though his eyes were giving him trouble. Serena silently wondered whether or not he had any idea just what was happening to him yet. "I found something your not going to believe in here-what!" he asked, glaring at Chris, who was staring straight at him. Chris raised a hand and pointed at the slow but steady flow of blood running down Stamper's arm from his hand wound, where the Zombie child had bitten him earlier. He didn't need to say anything. Stamper cursed, flicked his arm around, failing utterly to even slow down the steady flow of blood, then grabbed at the sheets of paper he'd been reading through again regardless.

"To Hell with it...okay...well, the long and short of it is that there was a cadre of Scientists who could have worked for South Africa pre-Mandela without raising an eyebrow here running this place with the cooperation of the Iraqi's, permission coming straight from Hussein himself. Their plan was to create a Biological weapon that could be used on human test subjects which would remove their freedom of will and thought while granting them superhuman physical characteristics instead of simply killing them. If they were successful, they would have created humanoid weapons that would follow explicit commands to damage or destroy any object or kill any specific individual with total, unquestioned obedience" Stamper began, flicking through the pages as he summarised for his attentive audience.

"They were attempting to achieve this with a Virus farmed from a source that isn't covered in any of the records I've seen so far, since it enhanced the physical characteristics of those in question while destroying higher brain functions. Unfortunately, or not depending on your point of view, they couldn't stabilise the results enough to maintain a viable Test Subject for any length of time since the Virus bred like a Parasite, quickly spreading through the whole system of anyone infected and causing the body to decay from the inside out until it dissolved into a new form of the same Virus which would then go on to infect others. This Virus utterly destroyed the Host in hours at most, every kind of human and animal experiment was a total failure-the "Zombies we've been running across are examples, if you're wondering.

/HOWEVER/...there was a catch, isn't there always. Certain individuals, such as the dead creature just inside the back room and others like it, were created by some kind of freak mutation reaction to the Virus when it caused their DNA to change radically rather than killing them. They have a list of what they came up with, but most of its been cleaned out as unsafe and lethally dangerous-they kept samples of course. There were only two left, actually: that thing back there, they call it an Ares Hound, and something they called a Behemoth. I don't have the slightest idea what that is, but if its as dangerous as it suggests here I never want to be in the same building with it if its loose" said Stamper, before glancing up and around at each of them for a moment.

"One last thing: does everyone remember that the Failsafe was stated to have been activated according to the computer due to catastrophic system failure? Yes? Good, because that is a /serious/ problem. This placed is rigged with enough C4 to take out every floor of the Empire State /before/ bringing down the building, taking the roof right off in the process. There is no way at all to turn it off from within the facility. I have no idea how long we have left to live until I get access to a computer. Fun, eh?" Stamper finished, leaving everyone staring at everyone else, even Serena for once unsure just what they were going to do next...

Chris cleared his throat loudly to get everyone's attention, then glanced at Serena for a moment before speaking. "Might I just say, you can live with failure but death is final? It's this simple: we find what we came here for, get out of here fast as we can and dismember Webb on the way if we see him. If not, Serena tracks him down later and brutally murders him unless one of us does. We see a computer, Stamper Hacks it and we find out what we need to know. Otherwise we run like hell, anyone disagree?" he asked, loudly.

"Yes" came back Stamper, without hesitation, "What about Aaron? He can barely move, let alone walk. What about /_me_? If I'm reading this right-and I /am/- I could be infected with the same thing killed them. There is an Anti-Virus for cases like these, there always is, so I /have/ to find it. Do you want to argue about /that, Chris?" asked Stamper, just as loudly. Chris glared at him and moved to reply, but Serena cut him off as her diamond-sharp eyes cut into Stamper's with an almost physical force, making him literally take a step back at her expression.

"You /are/ infected, you bloody fool, any open wound injury sustained from one of these things will make you one of them in six hours if your lucky. The Virus is a Chimera, it adapts to its environment where process of delivery is concerned, air, water, physical contact, whatever, get it and your going to die. As for the Anti-Virus, take a look around you, Stamper. Do you really believe that we'd have run across nothing but walking Corpses and mutant abominations rattling around loose and free in this place if any of the staff had access to it? Including the ranker we found at the entrance we used? Remember /that? There is no Salvation in this place. We are in Hell. Get used to the idea" snapped Serena sharply, her face bereft of expression but her eyes glittering with barely suppressed anger.

Stamper was smart enough to simply shut up and surrender the argument at that point, even as he and everyone else stared at Serena with expressions that suggested they'd just felt an army march over their graves. Stamper just stared at her for a long moment, then sat down heavily and put his head in his hands, fingers over his face, face pale and empty of any feelings or expression of anything at all. He looked as though he'd just been told that the world was ending tomorrow and his loved ones were dying first. Chris didn't blame him...

Y

"Damn it..." muttered Webb, pressing the bloody bandage to the back of his head. Aaron had really done a number on him, the wound on the back of his head just wouldn't stop bleeding. He couldn't even stop and bind it up, he didn't have the right gear in his First Aid kit. Worse, if made a mistake while trying and got jumped by a Zombie or worse... well, whether or not he'd been Vaccinated the creatures could still easily tear his throat out or cripple him with a lucky strike.

Moving at a steady jog along a memorised route through the complex-the only hazards were the occasional Zombie, not a threat as long as he didn't run out of ammunition really-he was heading for Professor Robert Creig's secure base area in the centre of the complex. With the possible exception of Serena, who was an unknown quantity since he hadn't been able to dig up anything at all on her during his quick Hack before the mission start, a fact which half-worried, half-annoyed him, it would take all of his "team" at least an hour to reach this point unless they knew the way. Not one of them, again bar perhaps Serena, was dangerous enough for that to matter, so he wasn't worried.

The C4 Plastic Explosives would go off in just under an hour, 58 minutes and 43 seconds according to his watch. His plan dictated that he dump his team-all dead by other causes, preferably-with an hour free, collect Creig and retire on the primary Escape arena, the helicopter, with half an hour to spare. He'd take off with Creig, watch his team get nuked, then go to Baghdad, where CIA contacts would move the two of them out of the country discreetly. He'd return a heroic, battered survivor, everyone else on the mission dead, get a clutch more medals and be reinstated in his command-two million dollars richer. Life would have been good... But not being sure about what was happening made life bad for him. Just carrying the injured Aaron might not even slow them down if Serena took it on herself to scout ahead...

He saw the lab at last, paused to pop two Zombies with his Desert Eagle, stood in front of the door and waited for the Security Camera to centre on him. It did and the door opened, the grey-haired Creig appearing, dragging a young woman who appeared to be drugged she was having so much trouble even standing up, let alone focusing on anything. Then, before it registered, Creig whipped out a syringe filled with some liquid he didn't recognise and stabbed him in the Jugular with it, emptying the whole of the contents straight into his bloodstream.

Webb doubled over with a howl of pain, clutching at his neck, ripping out the syringe. His eyesight changed, flickering from normal to red-filmed to all white to a "normal" so enhanced in detail that his brain nearly shut down as he couldn't take it in. He suddenly became capable of distinguishing grains of dust. His heart nearly cracked his ribs a moment later, literally, then he felt rather than heard his shirt and trousers tear. He straightened up and stared at himself, bulging muscle rippling to impossible proportions, the slightest step seemingly almost firing him through the air, the feeling in his body being that he could shape steel in his bare hands to begin with, all of his senses screaming impossible detail into his mind. He staggered, nearly threw up, then stared murderously at Creig as his whole world shifted around him. "/WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, YOU PIECE OF-/" he screamed, the sound alone almost deafening to his new sense of hearing.

Creig cut him off, his voice cool and disinterested. "Umbrella Steroids, jack up everything you have by a factor of ten for twelve hours or more depending on the dosage, the basic for you. I thought you might need an edge based on what I've seen so far. Shall we go?" he asked. Webb did nothing but stare at Creig for several long moments, homicidal fury in his eyes...

Y

"Serena, lets just be clear on this if we can be-YOU /KNEW ABOUT THE VIRUS!" shouted Chris, staring in almost-angry disbelief at the woman he'd just started to think he really liked. Her indescribable good looks, delicious tawny skin and sapphire-blue eyes didn't hurt either...

"Yes. Military Intelligence and the CIA working together dug up all kinds of information of the "Eyes Only" variety going back to 1990 concerning weapons of a, shall we say, supremely dangerous and supremely insane nature relating to Biological Weapons. The kind of weapons, since you ask, which can only be tested on people who'll never be seen again or the dead since if anyone came looking for them they'd have to be killed to and that creates Security complications. I wasn't cleared to brief any of you, but this little catastrophe has well and truly thrown the baby out with the bathwater so Regulations are totally fucked and I'm telling you now. Be quiet and listen, Stamper" said Serena, waving a hand to shut him up as he tried to ask a question.

"The Bio-Weapon is both Life and Death. It can repair damaged cells but it also destroys, through mutation, living ones, almost always resulting in a fatality where anyone or anything infected is concerned. The real problem, though, is that it doesn't stop there: the mutated cells are reactivated by the Virus using the electricity the brain retains for a while even after death, creating a semi-sentient creature which obeys only the most basic needs, to feed and breed, on and in humans or other living creatures if your wondering. This means that the only way to kill them is severe cranial trauma or complete decapitation, clear? They've been trying to find a way to control these things and prevent them self-destructing here, but they never succeeded while I was watching. How they got dead is a mystery I wish I could answer, but it could mean or be because of anything. Foul play is /always/ first choice where subjects like this are concerned, though, so expect some lunatic who has a God complex and his finger on the trigger to be around here somewhere-probably with Webb by now. You see him or her, kill them. You can talk now, Stamper" said Serena, with a smile at Chris which he returned after a second.

He just couldn't stay mad at her, he was discovering, a fact which she'd noticed. In fact, in all likelihood he was falling for her the way he was behaving around her... She wasn't sure if that bothered her or not. With Tom dead under such horrific circumstances she could use a shoulder to lean on, maybe even an ear to confess to...

"Fuck" said Stamper, that one-word exclamation saying all that needed to be said as far as he was concerned. He looked up and around, meeting everyone's eyes, Serena's last, then said "Fuck" again, with feeling. He looked as though someone had walked over his Grave as he glanced at Serena again a second later, his eyes haunted. She didn't blame him, to all intents and purposes someone had.

"Hey! Can we GO now please? I really don't want to still be here when some more of these things come looking for a snack, you know?" said Chris, waving his free hand to get everyone's attention even as he shifted the strap of Tom's AK-47 across his shoulder so that it rested more comfortably across his chest. Aaron had taken Tom's Magnum, since even injured he was one only three people on the team strong enough to use the gun properly. Serena herself had taken the rest of his gear and hidden it away about her person.

Stamper looked as though he was considering murder as he glared at Chris, but Serena just nodded in silent agreement and the battered, bloody Aaron just leaned on Chris more heavily, a sign to anyone who thought about it. The big man was in no shape to do anything but die if anything or anyone else got to him, so his Vote went to "Running like Hell". Stamper saw all of this, threw up his hands and stood, his face a picture of misery as he drew his Glock.

Serena and Chris carefully manoeuvred Aaron about, then Serena left the physically stronger Chris to act as the bigger mans crutch as she scouted ahead. Stamper strode quickly forwards and joined her, a little to her irritation as she slipped past the heavy door and let her gaze briefly take in Tom's ruined, torn-up and blood-drenched body, but she couldn't let distractions like that deflect her focus so she shut it all out for now. Besides which, she could guess why Stamper wanted to talk to her, the real reason he was there...

"Serena, are you /absolutely/ sure that there is no way /at all/ I might even possibly find an Anti-Virus or at least something that might retard the Virus's progress in this place anywhere, even if I have to go through every Zombie in this place to be sure? Long enough for me to come up with something more permanent, maybe" he asked, desperation edging into his voice as he spoke. His eyes were gleaming with a combination of his impressive intellect working hard and outright fear. Fear was only natural in a situation and place like this, but she needed Stamper on edge and ready, not frantic and useless. She considered what to say for all of five seconds before replying.

"I wouldn't sign the Cheque in blood, no, but your smarter than I am and everyone, everything we've run across so far has been stumbling around in a way which doesn't allow for argument. Think it through after adding in just who would have been working in a place like this, especially if some of the people were from outside of Iraq. One thing, though" she replied, glancing at him and deliberately holding his gaze for a long moment. "Did you notice that there was an Ares Hound lying with its brains over the floor in the room back there?" she asked, to a slight nod from Stamper which told her everything she needed to know-he was thinking what she was. Something was going on here that had no business being anywhere outside of some very/VERY/ secret secure labs...

Y

They headed inwards towards the centre of the facility as best they could, slowly due to Aaron's injuries. He was sweating heavily but was still mobile under his own power and lucid, which were the absolutely critical things in this situation. He was not, however, doing so well dealing with the pain of his injuries, so Stamper and Chris had been forced to switch positions so that Stamper could deliver Painkiller injections as possible and necessary. He couldn't supply the kind of support Chris or Serena could-Serena was stronger and far more resilient than most men her height and weight, that was a fact and he knew it-but Aaron could compensate using him as a huge crutch and was doing just that.

Chris was rearguard while Serena was scout and front line, ranging ahead and coming back quickly, occasional gunshots sounding as she dealt with Zombies off to the sides and in front of them. Stamper clutched his Glock tight in a sweaty hand and occasionally rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, trying to clear his eyes. His eyesight seemed to be getting almost...foggy, as though something was affecting his eyes and likely his brain, maybe even the optic nerve. It /was, he was dying and there was nothing he could do about it, or so it appeared. Hell, he was going to wish in maybe a few hours, maybe a few /minutes, that he was /just/ going to die... "There is a cure, there is a cure, there is a cure" he kept repeating under his breath, increasingly desperately, eyes darting back and forth for the slightest sign, the slightest possibility of /anything/ at all...

Serena's voice abruptly cut across everyone's thoughts as a sharp order sounded over the radio. "This is Reaper, everyone double time on my position. That is immediate, highest priority" she said, her tone of voice cold as ice, something being.../odd/ about the way she said it. It was almost as though she was, perhaps, worried...?

"This is Airman, I copy, on our way"came back Chris Redfield's voice, just before Stamper heard the young Pilot jogging up behind them. He ducked under Aaron's splinted arm, grimaced at fresh sight of his injuries, then wrapped an arm around the big mans waist to help out him and Stamper.

Chris's manoeuvre Aaron to walk more or less normally. At a steady walk, they advanced to Serena's position as quickly as possible. When they got there and saw what she had, it was all that Stamper could do not to scream...

Y

Robert Creig was not a happy man. Although, of course, it was technically impossible for a true perfectionist to be happy. What had made him truly unhappy in this case, though, was his chosen tool of survival, the soldier who called himself Mickey Webb. Extensive combat training and experience he had, the ruthlessness to use it efficiently he had too. A weakness for large amounts of money, soft women, willing or otherwise, and a large amount of recreational drugs, all of which actually made him very easy to manipulate for a truly intelligent man...yes, he had all those things.

He now also had Umbrella-created Steroids making every part of his body work a great many times harder and faster than nature had ever intended, though. Extensive conditioning and training could adapt anything to extended periods of use, yes, but Webb just did not have that. Meaning that for every beat of his heart there was a chance of him suffering a massive heart attack at best, at worst a complete and total catastrophic organ failure that would effectively makes his internal organs liquefy.

While they worked Webb could wrestle a car, out-last a Horse and tie steel bars into neat Pretzels if he wanted to. He wouldn't even notice much pain from any source unless the injuries he suffered were absolutely catastrophic-Creig had seen with his own eyes a teenage boy plucked off the streets of Paris not even notice taking a point-blank Shotgun blast to the chest while on them-but the injuries would kill him regardless. With Alice slung over Webb's shoulder Creig certainly wasn't physically burdened by anything but his samples, research and CD's containing vital information which now existed no-where else, but he was burdened by irritation verging on worry.

He knew Webb was volatile and extremely dangerous if pushed the wrong way too hard and too fast, but he could deal with that. He knew Webb could break him into small pieces with his bare hands with a smile, but he could deal with that too. No, what he was /really/ unhappy about was the fact that, although Webb thought he couldn't hear him, the soldier wouldn't stop going on and on under his breath about a "Miss Enigma" and how he was going to teach her some respect...

Y

"_Central Holding_" had apparently once been a combination extremely high-tech sealed and secured lab crossed with a Prison Cell. A massive central area was created by a once-solid eight-foot wide metal ring that went from floor to ceiling with only two reinforced glass viewpoints either side. The steel was three inches thick and would have, in Serena's professional opinion, withstood a regular tank round-so the six foot wide hole torn in one side of it, apparently from the inside out by the pattern of impact damage and torn-up metal, extending from floor to ceiling, was something of a surprise.

Computers of all sizes, shapes and descriptions were dotted all around the area of the secure lab, along with a massive variety of feeds leading deep inside the ring which appeared to have been literally inserted into whatever was once in there. Feeding tubes, IV lines, pads and lines for monitoring every single vital function were in all there somewhere...but most of them had been torn right out of the thing when it had escaped, presumerably soon after the Virus had been released and monitoring had stopped.

A dark-black substance which appeared to be an oil-thick and sticky form of blood mixed with flecks and pieces of grey hide, as though the thing had had an Elephants hide. Stamper would have staked his left arm on that not being the case. But what that meant, he didn't even want to try to imagine.

Chris Redfield was staring at the hole in the wall which was roughly the same size and shape as the one in the ring. He was also staring at the massive tears and dents all over the corridor leading away from the secure lab apparently caused by this...thing. If he was any judge of physical dimensions this thing was eight foot tall and four wide, at least. Worse than that, given the obvious dents in the floor wherever its feet had pressed, he'd guess at its weighing at least half a ton...whatever it was made of, come to think of that.

Chairs were scattered around the lab, as were the remains of crushed and summarily dismembered Zombies obviously torn to pieces by the escaping thing on its way out. Given the way the trail of destroyed Zombies lead straight out the hole in the wall Aaron, even through the mists of pain clouding his mind, could tell that the thing which had torn its way out of here had literally just walked right over anything in the way, only pausing to rip bits off inconvenient obstacles until they moved.

"Do I speak for all of us when I say "Oh, Shit, what now!"" asked Stamper, rubbing his sore eyes again before he started scratching his injured arm. It felt soft and tender, the skin and flesh around the wound was starting to turn dark with what looked like infection. The blood running from the wound which just wouldn't close was still red, but he could almost taste the rot in it. He felt bile in his throat and his guts roiled, but he held it down. Serena was right, he was running out of time /fast/...

"Yes. Stamper, hack the mainframe and see what there is in there, anything useful at all. Chris, watch out for anything coming through the damn hole. If you see anything bad scream your head off. Aaron, sit down before you die" said Serena, snapping out Orders like a Drill Sergeant even as she righted a chair for Aaron to use, which he sank into with a massive sigh of heart-felt relief. Not one of them questioned her assumption of Command after Webb's disappearance for even a second, while Chris and Aaron were actually glad to be shot of the arrogant Delta Force man.

Stamper didn't care for a variety of reasons, but would never admit that he would far rather stare at Serena all day than Webb. However, social and command issues were the last thing on his mind as he sat down at the main computer, sweat starting to bead his brow for no good reason. Preparing himself, he accessed the main program to be challenged by a Secure ID Log-In. With a grim smile, he cracked his knuckles and started playing the computer keyboard like a Maestro. This wouldn't take long...

Chris didn't notice Serena coming up next to him until he was abruptly aware of a dark presence standing to his right. He managed not to blink at the sudden apparition-then almost died of shock as she lifted a hand and ran her fingertips across his right cheek in an unmistakable caress, setting every single one of the nerves there on fire. She let her fingers slide off of his face down to his shoulder, where they squeezed with just enough strength to get his attention, an attempt at reassurance he presumed, then stepped sideways slightly so that her shoulder was actually touching his.

"I don't suppose you've actually seen "Dawn of the Dead" have you?" she asked quietly. Chris considered various responses to such a question at such a time, discarded all of them and tried to work out what she meant. After a moment he gave up and tried the simple truth.

"No, I have enough in the way of real horrors to deal with personally, let alone professionally, thanks. I prefer films like "Top Gun" to be perfectly honest, laugh if you want. Why?" he replied, curious despite himself.

"I only watch horror movies unless I can come up with a romantic comedy, to be perfectly honest. "Dawn" just seemed to be appropriate given that it focuses for most of the film on a group of people trapped inside a Shopping Mall under siege by Zombies, who have to find a way to escape at the end. Horror is one of the few things that makes me feel alive now, sorry to say, my world and my life have become so much about violence that nothing else means much of anything any more" replied Serena, with the slightest shake of her head.

Chris had to wonder just where this bizarre conversation was going next given such an awful revelation, but he couldn't stop his next comment in time. Later, he wouldn't be sure whether or not it had been a mistake...

"What about sex?" he almost blurted, then immediately wanted to die as it occurred to him just what he'd said given just who he was speaking to. Serena Baccarin didn't say anything at all for some seconds as Chris wished the ground would open up and swallow him, even while he felt so embarrassed that he almost wished they were being besieged by Zombies. Then she looked straight at him, a sly smile on her face, a look in those incredible eyes that just swallowed him whole.

"/_That_/ depends on who and what. If we get out of here, buy me dinner and I might just let you show me what you mean... Although I should warn you its all or nothing with me. There are things you don't know you'd need to, as well..." she replied, so softly that it was clear she was /only/ talking to him. Her words trailed off in a way which suggested more clearly than saying so would have just what she had in mind. Chris's mind had fused the moment he realised just what the flesh and blood fantasy standing next to him had said, but it didn't stop his imagination running riot.

He already felt sweat-slicked silken hair and skin sliding across his own like the most perfect, flawless soft silk sheets imaginable. He could just about feel firm, sculpted curves and long limbs pressing against and wrapped around his body so tight it hurt, taste the sweet strawberry nectar of those lips and that mouth, sense the perfect contours of that flawless face and body so close to his that he could literally touch them. He could already smell her musky Beech-tree scent all over his skin...

"Aw...no..." exclaimed Stamper, in a way which suggested that he'd just received the final details about the coming Apocalypse. Chris's train of thought derailed as he had to abruptly stop fantasising about Serena and focus on what was happening around him again. He was startled again when he realised that Serena was already standing next to Stamper when only a moment had passed and he hadn't seen or sensed her moving at all. The woman was the definition of a Spook...

Her expression and Stamper's exclamation as they both stared at whatever he'd dug up on the computer told him everything else he needed to know...

/End of Chapter Nine. All Reviews welcomed/

P.S. this is the last but one Chapter, things are going to happen VERY fast in Chapter Ten and there's going to be an awful lot going on. I hope that anyone out there still reading this finds it a worthy pay-off for their efforts in getting this far... (HINT HINT REVIEW?)


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimers: For all disclaimers see Chapters 1 and 2.

Notes:

Graphic violence and adult language will be used in this Chapter. If you read on, you were warned. For those of you wondering: yes, the question of how can Chris Redfield have gone through all of this and yet not know anything about Umbrella, its activities or Zombies/worse in RE1 will be answered in this Chapter. Read on and find out more... CHAPTER TEN Lost Souls 

/June 8th 1996, central Iraq/

**_38:15_**

**_38:14_**

**_38:13_**

Serena Baccarin was simply frozen, for one of very few times in her life.

**_38:12_**

**_38:11_**

**_38:10_**

A variety of swearwords fought to pass her lips first. She ignored them all.

**_38:09_**

**_38:08_**

**_38:07_**

They had less than forty minutes before the world they knew cremated them alive in a C4-fueled fireball hot enough to liquefy steel and vaporise human flesh. There simply wouldn't be any trace of them left if the Failsafe detonated the complex Self-Destruct while they were in the building.

/_Fuck_/.

She wasn't even sure that they could get out of this place that fast if they ran all of the way. What to do, what to do, what to do...

**_38:07_**

**_38:06_**

**_38:05_**

Who was she kidding? There was only one thing to do, as had always been the case: find Robert Creig and execute with extreme prejudice. That was why she was here, after all. The sample of the Virus the team had been assigned to retrieve was their mission, she was just riding shotgun. She'd wasted ten whole seconds, there was work to be done.

Without even blinking, she pulled out a Stopwatch, set it to the exact second and hit start. Then she scanned the computer screen for information apart from the Failsafe Timer readout. She spotted the trick in a moment.

"Stamper, get into the mainframe properly and find out where the samples are, right this second. Discover if anyone else is let alive here while your at it, where they are if so. Most important, find us a fast way out if here in the sense that _fast_ means were at least a hundred metres from this place when the explosives go off. _Move_" snapped Serena, slapping Stamper's shoulder to be utterly sure of getting his attention.

Stamper's agile fingers flew across the keys /very/ quickly. In seconds the screen cleared and an Activity Log came up on the screen-only to immediately request a Username and Password. With no time to waste Stamper Hacked it, beating the surprisingly sophisticated lockout with little trouble since he routinely designed better. The screen cleared again and the Log came up properly. Serena very nearly put her boot through the computer screen at what was revealed.

The same day, six hours earlier. Robert Creig, Head Researcher and Administrator, had shut off all external communications and Locked Down the whole complex. He had then released the T-Virus through the Air Conditioning, killing everyone outside of the central lab area. He'd locked the main lab completely away from the main base interior first, after sealing his primary team inside with him. That done, he had burnt all electronic data, wiped and wrecked the main operating system beyond all hope of recovery, leaving only basic systems functioning, then destroyed all Virus samples-bar the original test samples. He'd even thought to shut down the Air Conditioning after this to prevent any accidental infection of himself...

Then things had gone _all_ kinds of wrong. The dead workers had gotten up and started stumbling around hunting for meat. Experiment subjects had gotten loose from cages confining them with the Security compromise of Virus release automatically shutting some areas off and opening others. The Undead dogs, listed as Cerberus Prototypes, being just a part of this. Typical Scientist gift for melodrama, Serena couldn't help but think. No doubt they knew that Cerberus was the double-headed hound which guarded the Gates of Hell... _Then_ there was the Behemoth.

It had walked out the wall, literally, of this lab, where it had been held in mass restraint and sedation. The sedatives had been made up of a cocktail of heavy duty Muscle Relaxants, Sleeping Drugs, Narcotics designed to disorientate and confuse and Mind Altering substances, to describe them politely. They'd been so scared of the thing they'd plowed every single kind of consciousness suppressor and relaxant they could to stop it from EVER even possibly waking up while they continued to study it-defying all logic and all sense from what Serena could see. But then, sane people didn't work on things like this...

It was so big and physically powerful that it had parted inch-thick chain restraints bolted to floor, walls and ceiling inside the huge tube just by moving, smashed its way through the three-inch-thick steel and torn a solid steel wall like Rice Paper. The Security Camera footage was indistinct because it was so huge, almost ten feet tall and four, maybe five wide at least, but she could make out massive, thick arms and huge bear-like claws at the end of them. Suddenly she had an idea of just what had happened to the terribly mutilated corpses she, Stamper and Chris had found earlier. Why this thing would try to conceal such things she couldn't easily explain...

"Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle...we are so screwed" muttered Stamper, rubbing his sore eyes with an expression which suggested he'd just laid eyes on death itself. His eyesight seemed to be failing, he was having increasing trouble focusing on anything at all no matter how hard or long he stared at it. Worse than that, his injured arm was increasingly slick with blood despite his attempt at a rudimentary bandage with the sleeve of his uniform and he could feel the wound itself, the area around it too, going increasingly numb as time went on. His whole arm now felt soft and almost floppy, with the awful sensation spreading into his chest at an increasing rate.

Was this what dying felt like/Was/ he even dying, given what he'd seen so far of the effects of this awful Virus? Wasn't he going to end up like those...things...soon? No, no /way, he'd find a cure first /somehow/. Either that, or he'd take care of his not becoming a thing like that regardless, permanently. Contrary to popular belief he'd never lacked for courage, or nerves, he just came at them differently to most. He had no difficulty at all with the concept of putting a bullet in his own brain to prevent his own death being used against him...

"Stamper, unless you have the location of Creig to hand /shut up/. More to the point, get to work on finding that obscene excuse for a piece of humanity. Chris, your with me. Aaron...if you suddenly start to feel worse, tell me. You won't get a second chance in here" said Serena, sparing the battered engineer a brief glance of sympathy. Feeling too weak to do much else, Aaron nodded as Serena and Chris stepped off to one side. Stamper tried to follow his Orders, but things were getting worse. It took all of his concentration just to make his eyes focus now, the strain of making his brain and body keep functioning was slowly killing him as dark edges shimmered at the edges of his sight...

Serena made sure that Stamper and Aaron couldn't hear her or see her face before she turned to face Chris. She'd have to be brutally direct, there wasn't time to be kind and she had no inclination to be under the circumstances. She looked Chris in the eyes-now was /not/ the time to consider just how alluring those light-brown pools of welcome were-and just said it.

"Chris, Stamper has minutes at best left, not hours. If he changes when were not ready he'll kill Aaron if he's anywhere near him, quite possibly us too, through infection if nothing else. So understand this: if he makes even the slightest odd movement or sound, shoot him in the head and make your peace later. I may not have much to live for, but I am not going to die here. So understand this too: if he gets you, I'll kill you too without thinking about it and I /won't/ care. This isn't about success, its about survival, understand?" she said, staring deep into Chris's eyes, willing him to hear what she was saying and understand what she meant without even attempting to make any pleas for mercy. If he tried to reason with her, she didn't know /what/ she'd do. If he didn't understand as much as she'd told him so far, there was no hope...

Chris didn't even bat an eyelid. "I'll be doing him a favour and we both know it, just like you will me if it comes to it. One thing /you/ should understand, though" said Chris, his bright eyes never leaving hers for even a moment. "Aaron is getting out of here alive and back to the US if I have to drag him through the whole desert myself and fight a Battalion with a Combat Knife, okay?" he replied, clearly utterly serious.

After a brief moment, she smiled. She shouldn't have, it wasn't fair, but her respect, and her growing liking of the young man, made her do it. She held out a hand without even considering it. Chris took her forearm in his hand as he returned the favour, the two of them sharing a strangely intimate meeting of the minds. She had real trouble suppressing the wish that that strong hand would be joined by the other in her hair, on her shoulders, on her bare breasts...

Chris's smile was slightly wild-eyed, but she was confident that he was as fine as could be expected in the circumstances. "Hey", he muttered, "If what's been happening here hadn't taught me to do what it takes then I think /you'd/ think I was missing something important, let alone me. Fight the good fight but do whatever it takes to win, right?" he muttered.

She-was-NOT going to kiss him...

"Hey, I found him!" called out Stamper suddenly, surprise evident in his voice. Chris and Serena walked over to his side quickly, to see what appeared to be poor-quality streaming footage straight from CCTV cameras being shown on the computer screen. One feed was enlarged, to the point that a figure none of them had seen before was centre-screen-a middle-aged man, wearing a lab coat over scrubs and a pair of steel-frame glasses. An attractive young woman was being half-dragged, half carried behind him while he held a large metal suitcase in his free hand. Creig and...somebody, Serena identifying him immediately from old surveillance photos. In front of Creig, waving his M-16 around like he knew how to use it...

Chris loudly and obviously clicked off the safety on his Desert Eagle even as he drew it slowly from the holster. "I sense a murder coming on..." he declared, with an expression that suggested he had absolutely no problem with that at all...

"First come, first served, Chris. Stamper, just where are they?" said Serena, trying to recognise anything in the picture. Abruptly, Webb raised his M-16 and started shooting at something off-camera-a second later, distant echoes of gunfire sounded, the whip-crack recoil roll of a heavy gun firing single-shot again and again...

"Not very far at all, actually" replied Stamper, as he turned, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He pointed back the way they'd come and shrugged. "Sprint that way and you'll beat them to where they must be going" he added, before trying and failing to stand. His legs were trembling and weak, he could feel an increasing cloudiness spreading through his mind even as a sick, horrifying numbness spread throughout his body. "Shit..." he muttered, even as he realised that, finally, it was all over...

Serena didn't miss what he said, nor anything else about him. Without so much as a question or even a word she pulled a pistol and shot Stamper in the back of the head, the contents of his skull exploding over the computer console in front of him in a thick, terrible wash of meat, bone and blood. He was dead long before the remains of his head thumped as a dead weight against the metal and plastic...

Chris Redfield almost threw up, but didn't. He was getting numb to the horror, seeing the living dead upright and walking towards you intent on both eating you alive and ripping you limb from limb only scared for so long, no matter what anyone said-/but, that didn't take away the wrench in his guts and an awful, mind-numbing sense of disbelief when someone you knew was so brutally, casually murdered. The only thing which kept his gun in his holster was the fact that he knew better. Serena just might be a stone-cold killer, but she didn't kill unless she had to. If she'd wanted Stamper dead herself, she could have killed him in any of a thousand ways which none of them would have even guessed were suspicious in a Hell like this...

He swallowed several times before he was able to speak, staring at Serena as she slowly holstered her pistol. She was staring at the contents of Stamper's head, where they'd been spread all over the computer console by her point-blank shot... "Serena...did you have to?" he managed, slowly, weakly, still barely able to take in what she'd so casually done...

She turned and looked straight at him. Then he knew, it hadn't been casual at all. She'd /liked/ the little chemicals super-freak. "I'm a surgeon, Chris, not a Butcher. What do you think?" she replied, so quietly that he barely heard her. She looked more than a little angry at something, he sincerely hoped it wasn't at him for surviving this long somehow...

"I think that you did him a favour if he was going to become one of those things. I hope you'll do /me/ the same if it comes to that. Most of all, though, I am /very/ glad I'll never have your job" Chris said, somehow managing to give her the thumbs-up. She actually smiled at that... Another burst of gunfire sounded, not far off at all. The smile turned into a vicious grin.

"First one there gets his head?" she asked, nodding her head in the direction the gunfire was coming from. Chris just grinned back at her, in this he could read her mind for once.

"Sure, but what about Aaron? We can't just leave him here?" he replied. Aaron cut them both off before either could say anything, however.

"Go get...that ugly mother...guys. DON'T worry about me...I've survived this long, I'll survive...anything down here" Aaron said slowly, having trouble speaking around his broken jaw. Chris and Serena both looked at him, then at each other, then back at him. Their eyes met one last time, then they ran... Even as Aaron watched them go through bloodshot eyes, he wondered whether or not he'd have the strength to take care of things in the end...

Y

Webb shot another Zombie right between the eyes, stepped back and drilled another, then another-but he kept stepping back. Standard Combat Protocol said that if you were forced to retreat in the face of an enemy when challenged by superior numbers and/or firepower, you fell back on a secure or at least defensible position and called in relief. If this was impossible you dug in and defended your position until either you defeated the enemy, were relieved, escaped-or were rendered incapable through injury or death. In this situation, that made him dead.

Webb had fought in Wars, urban and rural conflicts all over the world. He'd participated in everything from full-scale Military action to brutal Street Fighting where you only had your bare hands to rely on. He'd fought in battles that had lasted months where vicious Guerrilla War was the norm, where you could walk through a door and have your throat cut with Piano wire, be shot in the back by a 90-year-old half-blind cripple and the norm was to triple-check your own base for Booby Traps every day and night when you woke up and again when you went to sleep, just in case. He'd been in places where you came to miss the shelling after months of ducking and diving as people tried to kill you using everything from Poison to bombs, where you went everywhere with at least two weapons on prominent display and stood in the sun permanently during the day because the shadows could be literally lethal.

He'd been in the US Army in one form or another for seventeen years putting his ass on the line for stiff-neck Politicians who had no idea what had to be done and he'd had enough. His time and service had taught him two things: first, no one remembered anyone but the survivors, so you always looked out for number one. If Umbrella happened to offer a much-improved package for him to work as a Double Agent for them while still in the Army-well, that was just fine. Too bad for the losers who couldn't see the truth. The second thing was much more important when facing off against a group of almost 30 Zombies which didn't want to die: always listen to the instinct which tells you when its time to bolt, something which was currently screaming at him... If he didn't think of something fast he was fucked, pure and simple. Creig could take his Virus and strike a deal with the next Zombie as of right now, what it would have been worth as a Bio-weapon on the open market was /_nothing_/ if they didn't get out alive...

Creig was still standing carefully behind him, making sure that he, the soldier with the guns, was between him, the Scientist and the walking dead. Survival instinct-Webb abruptly stepped backwards quickly, grabbed the almost comatose Alice as Creig literally half-dragged half-carried her, ripping her out of Creig's hands in an instant, then threw her at the Zombies. His steroid enhanced strength let him throw her ten feet easily, bowling over Zombies with the cracking, splitting wet sounds of breaking bones. She managed to mewl feebly in pain-then somehow managed an ear-splitting scream of pure terror and agony combined, just before a Zombie tore half her throat out, a second one ripping off half her face. Half a dozen Zombies literally fell all over the young woman in an instant, tearing loose flesh and muscle with teeth and fingers, snapping bones.

Almost anyone would have vomited at the very lest at the cannibal orgy occurring in front of them, almost anyone would have been left too horrified to move, most likely simply incapable. Webb didn't even notice the carnage beyond the fact that it made it more likely now that he would survive, Creig was simply incapable of mustering the humanity to care. Satisfied they'd slowed the Zombies down, Webb turned to run, sure he could out-distance the stumbling horde and cut around them-he caught Creig glaring at him, an odd look on his face. "I had plans for her, you know-" Creig began, then his brains fell out of the back of his head as a small, neat hole appeared precisely between his eyes. Creig, very slowly, looked up at the wound with a dumb expression, even as blood began to run down his face. He collapsed bonelessly a minute later in front of the furious Webb, who span around to locate the attacker-and froze.

Serena Baccarin held her left hand pistol on his head from the other side of the Zombie mob. The middle finger of her right hand was extended in a very obvious gesture, one that portrayed both intent and number. Webb just snarled, snapped up his M-16 and opened fire...

Y

Serena barely had time to throw herself to the floor before a succession of bullets tore through the air where her head had been, some punching through Zombies on the way. Chris didn't have her reflexes and his frantic dive wasn't fast enough, one shot slashing through his right upper arm, blood spraying through the air even as he slammed to the floor. He landed hard, howling in pain, rolled over and grabbed his injured arm with his left hand, trying to stop the flow of blood-

Hisses and screeches filled the air, sounds echoing all around that had no business being produced by anything moving that had once been human. Serena, still assimilating Webb's inhuman reflexes after he beat her to the trigger-tests had stated repeatedly that her physical skill and reflexes combined placed her in the top one percent of combat experts on the planet, a VERY elite few of which Webb was not one-glanced up...to see Hell rising.

The Zombies were charging them, literally. Chris's blood had woken them all up and they were going to eat him alive...

Not in /HER/ lifetime.

She drew her second pistol, rolled to her feet and started shooting. There was only ten feet distance between her, Chris and the Zombies, which meant this was going to hurt. Not bothering to say one word, she shut out everything she didn't need to know and focused on the job in hand. Zombies started to fall as though she was playing a video game even as they advanced at a shambling trot, heads popping left and right as bits and pieces of skull and brain sprayed in all directions, blood exploding against walls, ceiling and floor.

/_Breathe out. Breathe in._/

About thirty Zombies against her with twenty-nine bullets in her weapons. They were charging her with the intent of engaging her in CQC and dragging her down through sheer weight of numbers before she could simply kill them all. She had no time at all, which meant inaccuracy was lethal, so she didn't miss.

/_Breathe out. Breathe in_/.

She took in the sight of Webb grabbing the dead Creigs steel case-half done there-and running for it. She noted his likely route and kept shooting. Chris had been rendered incapable by pain and shock on top of injury but would be able again in maybe five minutes. He'd be lucky if he had more than one.

/_Breathe out. Breathe in._/

Her weapons grew hot in her hands as she fired dead-centre shots on the heads of every single monster without even thinking of hesitation. Skulls were surprisingly solid and resilient, actually, she knew from experience. Hit them at the wrong angle in the wrong place and small bullets like the ones she was firing would bounce right off or simply not do enough damage. Anyone capable knew better than to make mistakes like that, she was better than that. She knew all the right /and/ all the wrong places, how, where and when.

/_Scream if you want to go faster. Focus!_/

The only difference between this and the ETC version of a shooting range was the fact that the targets would only die if you shot them in the head. She enjoyed the challenge.

/_Breathe in. Breathe out_/.

The deafening roar of gunfire finally finished. She raised both weapons to head height and hit the ammo release, no need to count as both empty clips hit the ground with a dull clank. A professional knew when the job was done and did it right, including never running out of ammunition. As a thought occurred to her she blew the smoke away from the end of both barrels with a gentle puff and a smile, her nose catching the sharp stink of cordite and gunpowder. Not even a twitch, job well done-she estimated about a minute of concentrated effort. The one nearest to Chris was six feet away and missing the back of its head.

_Chris_.

She turned sharply on her heel to look straight at Chris, who was alert, aware-and staring straight at her with an expression of awe mingled with, perhaps, fear. Should she have savoured the look on his handsome face before he realised what she was staring at? Probably not, but everyone who really knew her was a little afraid of her, with good reason. She /_liked_/ fear, it let you know you were still alive, while anger took away your pain. The stare she directed at Chris after this was all predator. If she hadn't had a job to do still, if the corridor hadn't been full of the dead-again physical remains of walking Corpses-Hell, she'd have probably torn Chris's clothes off there and then and Raped him if she had to, not that she would have needed to she was sure. She knew too many people too well. Violence made /EVERYONE/ want to have sex as though tomorrow was the day after too late...

"Jesus...Jesus...Jesus...Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle and in Silk pyjamas... Fuck me, Serena, what did you do in your last life? Win Wars single-handedly with a smile and a knife?" asked Chris, slowly rising to his feet, pushing himself up off of the ground with his good arm. His smile was genuine, but she saw the look in his eyes. Hunger, lust, unadulterated Fuck-me-now. He'd just seen the closest he'd get to the Angel of Death doing what she did best and he wanted her /_bad_/. She didn't try to hide the smile. That felt /_good_/. After all this was over, if they got out alive, she was going to have to seriously see about this young man...

/**_BANG!_**/

Chris and Serena span to look behind them as an almighty clang sounded, steel wall bending and buckling wildly. The walls of this place were inches-thick steel, it would have taken shaped C4 charges to blow holes in them-and both Chris and Serena knew the sound of a punch when they heard one.

/**_BA-CRANNG!_**/

The wall gave entirely and a fist the size of a cooked chicken came right through. It was a pale white in colour with no trace of fingernails or a thumb. The four fingers ended in short jet-black claws that looked designed to rip through anything from stone to flesh with equal appalling ease. The "skin" was rough and thick, it looked like it had been carved from solid stone and set straight on the creature's monstrously huge bones. The thing was built like a tank and it was acting like one. If it was as tough as it looked and sounded, Serena knew, they were dead. Chris had little better than a peashooter and she hadn't brought any more than the basics with her, foregoing her more exotic options in favour of dealing with simple human threats. Five years, when would she learn? She found herself wishing that Tom was still with her, at this moment in time she could really have used his help...

/**_SCRWEEE-NCH!_**/

The things other arm came through the gap as well and it simply spread its arms. The wall crumpled up like rice paper and opened like the top of a tin. It provided about as much resistance as cardboard would have in the end. The creature stepped through the gap and stood in front of them for a moment as it turned to face them, its bulk making it hard for the thing to simply manoeuvre in the corridor as its head clipped the ceiling.

Eight foot tall and four wide at least, the things was physically humanoid-this seemed to happen a lot, Serena reflected, human tests subjects all no doubt-but its arms were at least five feet long, its legs shorter than they should be, more like an Apes. Its head was small and strangely elongated, too long in places, set directly into its chest atop its body, precisely between massive, thickset broad shoulders. It had six eyes set right around its head, giving it total visual clarity in a 360-degree arc. Other senses were less easy to analyse, but various black holes in the head suggested that it did have the other basic four. It had that strange skin all over it, too, covering huge muscularity and a simple physical solidarity, a /density, really, that made her feel very, very worried. Serena spotted bloodstains up and down its legs, arms and body, even some on its head, but no-where was there any trace at all of physical injury or damage.

It had to be the Behemoth. They were now officially screwed, if she knew anything about physical resiliency it would take high explosives to penetrate that things hide.

/_Shit_/.

Under the circumstances, she did the one thing she could do, glancing at Chris for a moment. "RUN!" she shouted, then took off after Webb as fast as she could, taking her own advice in a hurry even as she heard steel crack and groan as the Behemoth started after them. Chris would later reflect that he'd never run so fast in his life...

Y

Webb sprinted down hallways at a dead run, skidded around corners, jumped bodies, vaulted over obstacles like toppled benches and fallen equipment, watched every side and angle for a glimpse of anything remotely threatening. A Zombie was shambling down the corridor he was in, but he didn't have time to waste-on the other hand, even a scratch could infect him if it was still Hot and he'd have to shove past to get by the thing...

He stopped dead a foot in front of it and slammed a kick to its groin-with such force it literally hit the roof as it rose a good three feet off the floor, denting the ceiling, shattering its skull, neck and collarbone in the process before falling limp and soggy back to the steel floor with an awful sound, a combination of cracking bone and tearing flesh as bone shards tore through meat and muscle. Dead again, anyone could see that... He didn't move for a long moment after that, then he just started grinning like an idiot.

/_Holy Shit, this stuff is GOOD!_/ he couldn't help but think. Then he took off again, practically floating down the hallway, even while he reminded himself that the Steroids didn't make him immune to the Virus. He opened a locked steel double door by pounding on it until the metal bent sufficiently for him to get his fingers in the break, then heaved-so hard that the doors locking circuits blew and the hydraulics failed with a grinding crack of tortured metal being stressed far beyond the point of no return. He didn't even notice the blood coating his hands, flesh and skin hanging loose as he did so. His entire system was in overdrive, even Adrenaline and Endorphins were being mass-produced at a level nature had never intended-or allowed for. He wasn't feeling pain, he felt as though he could wrestle a Bull Elephant...and he had no idea what was happening to him, on the inside, where he couldn't see, at all. With his brain and body chemistry jacked up to beyond the max, he didn't even think of it...

The lab had six Zombies in it, two Security guards and four Researchers. Through this room was a short-cut to another corridor which led to one beyond Miss Enigma's current position-which eventually led to the way out... Zombies, what was so scary about the things anyway? All they were were the reanimated rotting physical remains of dead people, and he'd killed plenty in his time...

He stepped forwards and punched the nearest Zombie so hard its head exploded and his fist came out the back. Ripping his hand free, he grabbed the collapsing Zombie by both feet and tore its legs off before raising them like Baseball bats with a smile. A second later he was beating two more Zombies, bones snapping and cracking like rotted wood, the sheer force driving even the insensate dead to their knees as he pulverised their heads totally.

Throwing away the shattered legs as useless when done, he ripped up the steel stretcher in the middle of the lab, ripping the broad board section completely clear of its base, span it around his head-then slashed it across the Zombies fronts at neck height, barely even registering the sharp, heavy impacts as bones snapped and flesh tore. All three of the remaining Zombies fell like Dominoes as their heads fell loose to the floor, white eyes going dull and dead all over again...but for the /last/ time. Blood was everywhere, shredded flesh splattered across every surface, bits and pieces of human bodies were scattered round the lab as though someone had set off a bomb inside a body just to see what happened. He didn't even register it, just smiled and stepped forwards to the other side of the lab, rammed the stretcher up against the double door hard so hard it penetrated, then actually buckled, the doors slightly parted.

That was all he needed, he dropped the stretcher and stepped forwards, breaking the seal and forcing open the door with his bare hands, completely wrecking the technology operating the door in the process. /This is fun, I could go on all day.../ he couldn't help but think, even as he grunted away a brief pain in his chest, deciding that it must have been caused by his acrobatics with the Stretcher... Then he heard the running cat-light, almost silent footsteps of an individual he'd come to know only too well in this damned place. Coming his way...

He just smiled, how could he leave without ripping out her spine first after all? He picked up the battered stretcher, went back to the first door-then stepped outside and hurled it horizontally like a Frisbee, sending it spinning down the corridor at chest height at an impossible speed, like a massive shining-steel Scythe blade. He'd never been in the least philosophically or poetically minded, but he couldn't help but think the act seemed an appropriate form of execution for someone who called herself "Reaper" somehow...

Y

Serena's eyes shot open a split second before she frantically threw herself backwards at a dead run, crashing to the floor, rolling over and over before she came to a sudden stop. The stretcher span past a foot over her head at a speed that would have driven it right through her chest to her spine if it had connected, then continued down the hallway-a startled, frightened yell sounded from Chris, then an almighty crash echoed before silence fell.

Serena took a long moment to recover from the utter shock she felt-long enough for the first of Webb's bullets to clip the outside of her left hand before she registered the shooting, blood erupting from torn flesh. She jerked her hand down and rolled across the floor fast as Webb sprinted towards her firing his M-16 one-handed like a pistol, laughing like a lunatic. Sparks and screams of ricocheting bullets glancing and rebounding off of metal scattered all around her as she performed a spinning kick to her feet and dived forwards in a smooth Swan dive before rolling over and around in evasive patterns as fast as even her reflexes could manage, one bullet glancing off the sleeve of her jacket as the body armour did its job.

If Webb had paused for even a moment to actually aim, she knew, she'd have been dead. Quick as she was, smart as she was, agile as she was, one simply did not get to a senior rank in the Special Forces without being better than most Snipers when it came to killing people with their choice of weapon at a distance. Fortunately, Webb was clearly high on something and was too busy spraying bullets in her general direction on fully automatic to care what actually hit her, apparently.

She heard the /click/ of a trigger falling on an empty chamber and was on her feet a second later, both pistols-reloaded on the run-almost leaping into her hands... Webb's fist crashed into her chest in a flat-hand punch with such kinetic force that she was thrown twenty feet with the kind of force that suggested she'd been hit by a truck. She lost both pistols in mid-air somewhere along the way, along with all the air in her lungs and very nearly the solidarity of every bone in her chest.

The blow would have killed most people, but most people didn't have her advantage-of all things, her breasts had kept the hidden back-up Magnum concealed under them from Webb and so his punch crushed the gun into her chest rather than snapping her breastbone. That Webb /couldn't/ have gotten that close, that fast, flashed through her mind but was discarded in a moment, even as she landed hard with an agonising thud and skidded backwards on the base of her back and backside. He had, that was all that mattered, now she had to handle the situation as it presented itself.

Webb ran towards her and tried to slash a kick into her side under her ribs. She lifted herself off of the floor with only her arms, hands flat on the ground, rotated in a perfect spinning kick even as he moved and took his legs out from under him. He landed headfirst with an awful clunk, bone denting steel floor, but she had to roll away fast and back to her feet to avoid a double-footed kick counter before Webb back flipped to his feet and came after her again. He punched high /too/ fast, but she moved even faster and snapped a sharp elbow to his jaw that almost broke his neck. Snapping off a quick three-punch combination to the lower body that dropped him to his knees even as he tried to bite her, she rolled right over his shoulder to behind him before he could grab her in a bear hug and break her ribs.

Without stopping or even missing a beat, she span and launched the heel of her boot into a very specific area of his back-right into his Kidney, with more than enough force to do massive internal injury. He turned like a Bull and charged her regardless, blood spilling from his lips-she went for a Leopard Punch, aiming to smash his nose into his brain, then slashed the edges of both hands into both sides of his neck at once as he blocked in the wrong place, not fast enough to counter her. The strike crushed major arteries and damaged nerve endings, blood exploded out of his nose, mouth and ears, spraying everywhere, including over her, blinding her-his hand slammed her head against the wall like a sledgehammer strike. Her teeth cut into her cheeks inside her mouth, she nearly choked on her own blood as it filled her throat, just failing to bite off her own tongue. Sparks and Supernovas flashed behind her eyes as though she'd been put in orbit even as her legs went-she collapsed bonelessly to the floor, unable to do anything...

She thought she was dead, then realised that she wasn't and slowly forced stubborn eyelids open. Webb's face swam into focus in front of her, drenched in blood and spittle, his eyes mad and staring straight into Hell, full of such utter hatred and anger at her that it was almost a physical assault. He was lying on the ground too, bloody and broken, clearly incapable of even spitting on her. His last assault must have been one final act of desperation...

She sneered at him, resisted the urge to bite out his eyes and instead focused on forcing her body to respond. It took maybe a minute, but she felt her fingers twitch, then her toes, then feeling started to seep back into her limbs. Slowly, far too slowly, she was able to sit up and then stand, bracing herself against the wall on shaking legs. Her whole body was shaking and she couldn't stop it, part of the physical and mental trauma of the brutal fight she'd barely survived she silently diagnosed. Worse was the grinding ache behind the eyes and in the skull, the tremors running up and down her spine like electric shocks. A severe Concussion if she was any judge, it was very likely that she shouldn't even be standing up, let alone trying to do /more/...of course, that had never stopped her before, either.

With a smirk, she spat bloody saliva on Webb and left him to bleed out, cold, clinical certainty telling her that the man was no longer a threat. Her legs weak, she slowly reached and retrieved her pistols, holstering them carefully with the safeties on, then picked up Creig's case, recalling the mission that Chris and the others had been detailed to complete here. They'd need everything in this case to do so, no question. Virus, Anti-Virus, Vaccine… She just needed to find Chris, now, then retrieve Aaron, dodge the Behemoth and they could get the Hell out of here…

When she did finally spot Chris, though, she almost wished she hadn't.

Y

Chris had made the mistake of diving forwards when he saw the Stretcher coming at him like a circle of metal death straight from Hell, then realised his mistake too late and tried to throw himself to one side even as he went down. He didn't have Serena's instincts or her reflexes and it showed, he would freely admit as much later...

The blunt edge of the spinning stretcher at one corner cracked into his head with such force that it wobbled on its course, slewed to one side, bounced off a wall and fell to the ground with an almighty crash. Blood exploded from his head as a chunk of flesh was torn right out, the metal denting the bone of his skull with no more than a glancing strike. Chris span in mid-air like a propeller, rolling right over and slamming down on his back even as blood flooded down from his wounded scalp over his face and neck, soaking into his shirt. He went instantly blind and found that he could no longer tell which way was up as his centre of gravity had simply failed him, part of him instantly deciding that he must be literally in Hell as everything had turned into a sheet of bright, horrible, terrifying red. Only the screaming of a saner part telling him he was hurt, not dead, saved his sanity.

He thought he might have howled in pain, but everything was so scrambled inside his head after the awful impact that he simply couldn't be sure. He knew that his muscles were wrenching him around as he couldn't consciously control them, that he was rolling around on the floor helpless, hands on his face only getting smeared with his own blood, but he couldn't stop...

"Chris!"

Was that a voice/Serena's/ voice!

"/Chris/ Its alright, its alright, I'm here! Relax! Let me look at you"! snapped Serena's voice. He couldn't think of her as anything but a voice at the moment, he could be blind, he could be crippled, he might never, ever see her again... He felt strong hands grab his wrists, force his hands away from his face...then he felt something cool and soft being pressed against his head wound. The pain abruptly subsided as the flow of blood was drastically slowed, the ache in his head reducing, letting him recover some control over himself. He stopped writhing, relaxed a little.

Something splashed over his eyes, making his head jerk involuntarily, then again, even as something was pressed to his face. He started to see distinct spots, blinked again and again quickly-everything suddenly snapped into focus as the wadded-up edge of his own shirt finally cleaned away enough blood that he could see again.

The first thing he said was "Bloody Hell!" which, he would think a moment later, might not have been the wisest place to start.

Serena was a mess, a real mess. The left side of her face was swelling up, clearly heavily bruised, the left eye bloodshot. Her head was moving stiffly as she glanced at him, so she had to have hurt her neck as well. Blood had dried around her mouth while fresh traces stained her lips and chin. He could sense rather than see the wince as she slowly-/too/ slowly-stood and noted a chest injury, too, a significant one from the way she was moving. It didn't help that she involuntarily, momentarily grabbed at the centre of her chest, a blink-and-you-miss-it shift that he didn't. Worst of all were the almost invisible tremors that shook her entire body constantly, something she /couldn't/ hide which made it very clear she was in real pain. He'd been out minutes at most, how had this happened in this time? Webb...?

"For the record, ouch. Now, can you stand up by yourself?" she asked, wincing again and reaching a hand up to massage the back of her neck. That was not an encouraging sign, but he was relieved to discover that, while sore-in the case of his head, it felt like he'd been beaten with a red-hot Poker-everything still responded the way it should. It took him real concentration to sit up and he felt sick once he had, but he was mobile. He stood up very slowly and carefully, braced himself and took a step. It hurt, a lot, but he could move. /Thank God/.

He noticed that she was holding a case-Creig's case, the one that had to have all of the Virus samples in it... Could they even /possibly/ take that out of here? After all of this? He felt the urge to take the case and repeatedly mangle Creig's dead body with it-he suddenly felt faint, but held his feet until the spell passed. Serena looked at him critically, then shook her head.

"Chris, I've put a pressure bandage on your head and used an adhesive to keep it on, but you've lost a lot of blood. I strongly recommend against running and jumping around until you've either had a little time to recover, maybe a week, or been fixed up at a Hospital. On the other hand, we've no choice in the matter, so lets snap to it" said Serena, holding out a hand. He took it in an unsteady handshake and somehow managed a smile. Damn but this hurt...

Serena gestured at him to follow her and walked stiffly towards where she'd come from. He saw the bloodied, unmoving body of Webb and was very tempted to empty the man's head with a point-blank execution style shot, just to see if the man actually /had/ any brains, but it was Serena so he didn't. Considering the growing pool of blood around Webb's body now, she'd been as efficient and professional at killing him as she'd been at everything else so far...

He could manage a slow but steady trot at best, barely enough to keep ahead of any of the faster Zombies-had he actually just put Zombies in a sentence as though they were kind of thing you could meet on a day in the park/Damn, this place was getting to him. Serena was barely any better, but he got the impression that she would have found a way to keep going on two broken ankles so he didn't even try to suggest that she should take any of the painkillers he knew she was carrying.

The gunshot wound in his arm had finally stopped bleeding, fortunately being only a flesh wound which had missed muscle and bone, apparently, but his left hand was covered in flaking dried blood. His right arm was liberally streaked with dried blood, his shirtsleeve being soaked, now crunching every time he moved. More blood trailed over his scalp and face, not all of it dry, some dripping off of his cheeks and chin to the floor. It stank and was freaking him out, to put it mildly. Worse, given the way Zombies seemed to react to the scent and sight of fresh blood, he suspected that he might as well have a gigantic neon sign above his head stating "LUNCH!"...

They came to a lab entrance where two sealed double doors had been forced open to reveal a scene of carnage, six brutalised Zombies slaughtered and effectively torn to pieces all over the place, scattered body parts, blood, flesh and bone all over. He suspected that a Chainsaw would have done less damage, but he also saw the open second set of doors across the lab opened into another corridor. Another way out...? Serena glanced at him, sapphire-blue eyes cutting deep into his with searing intensity.

"Chris, this is where we part company, at least for now. Were both in bad shape, but I just can't move that quickly now and you can, even though you shouldn't. I know now that Webb knew this place far better than any of us, so he had to know a way out. This is it, but that's only part of it" she said, before pausing to breathe in deeply, never breaking eye contact.

"I need you to run right around the Behemoth, find a way to Aaron and get him out of here. If I live I'll meet you at the entrance, I'll beat you there if I do. I'll either find a way to kill the thing, trap it in here or simply make sure you have enough time to escape. Either that, or I'll die trying. If you do get out without me, you know the drill, so don't wait. Are we clear?" she asked, her voice and manner cool, calm and collected, as always. Chris just nodded, then groaned in pain even as she handed him Creig's case.

"Good, just one last thing then..." she said, then she stepped into his arms and kissed him full on the lips.

The kiss was long, slow and sensual, far beyond electrifying and so full of suggested pleasures that the memory of the first, almost clumsy, one in the midnight camp before their trip into Hell had ever really begun was simply washed away on a tidal wave of pleasure. First they embraced, then her hands traced the muscles of his chest, his arms, his throat, the lines of his face, even slipping under his shirt to caress warm skin and hard muscle, tracing with indescribable effect gently across his belly, just over his belt, hinting at passionate pleasures he couldn't even imagine yet to come.

His hands roved all over her body like wildfire, his lips devoured hers, he drank in the taste of sweetest strawberries and the earthy scent of deep forest added to a hint of leather, gunpowder, even blood. She was even more fine to the touch than to the eye, perfect muscle, skin and bones, firm full curves and a beauty so incredible, so flawlessly perfect that the fact it was his alone to have and to hold almost stopped him dead. His hands caressed her back, her belly, her face, her throat, her breasts, even finer than imagination suggested... She was finer than even the finest fantasy could ever be and she was /his/. If this was a dream he /never/ wanted to wake up, but he knew it wasn't. He didn't know which scared him more...

When Serena slowly, so slowly, pulled back and away from him, it was the first time he'd ever seen her even remotely shaken when he got a good look at her face. She didn't seem to be breathing at all, her eyes were full of emotions he couldn't even begin to take in as they swirled past, like the edges of a whirlpool momentarily throwing up scattered glimpses of all kinds of things. Her grip on his upper arms would have snapped a thick length of wood in two and he could practically feel her racing heartbeat threatening to burst her heart right out of her chest. She bowed her head and wouldn't meet his eyes-it was pretty obvious that she was almost completely unused to dealing with emotions of the variety that could literally paralyse you when she was personally involved. He'd known her for going on three days now and she'd fallen for him so hard that it was doing this to her...

If he wasn't suffering ten times anything and everything she was, he'd have been surprised and/or worried. As it was, since he didn't simply die on the spot he thought that, just maybe, intense experiences really did forge a bond between two people like no other. Of course, it didn't hurt that they'd been flirting on the way here starting on the same day they met... Was he missing something?

Serena suddenly let go of him entirely. "Stay alive, Chris" she said, then turned and took off at a jog-her whole posture making it clear that she was hurt, the liquid grace and animal agility that he'd automatically associated with her movements severely reduced, along with her incredible speed. Yep, she was hurt alright, but wasn't letting on how badly. Typical...

He took a last, longing glance at her, then gave Webb's body a vicious kick for the Hell of it before taking off himself at a dead run...

Y

It didn't take her long to reach the point that she could hear the grinding, crashing slam of the Behemoths footsteps coming her way, but she still found time to stop after Chris was out of sight to gingery, gently unstrap her chest holster, still containing the backup mini-Magnum. It came free and she breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a large part of what had been causing the agonising ache in her ribs and chest go away. Critically examining the wrecked weapon, she could easily identify the bent, twisted metal, cracked grip and jammed chamber still loaded with two shells.

It /was/ wrecked/totally/. She'd had to perform "emergency surgery" on just about every weapon she'd ever used at some point in the past in the field and she knew when something was finished. Still, given the force required to damage metal like that...well, if Webb had hit her square-on, flesh and bone against the same, her rib-cage would have disintegrated and bone shards would have perforated her internal organs if she hadn't bled out inside from the force of the impact first. An horrific death...she slung the chest holster over her shoulder and tied it in a knot. She was hardly sentimental, but there was no way she was so casually disposing of something which had saved her life like that. She'd think of something appropriate if she lived...

The crashing, grinding sounds of the Behemoths footsteps came closer slowly but steadily. At least they made it impossible for the thing to sneak, she reflected. The last thing even she'd ever see if it could would be its fist closing on her head if it came through the wall right next to her...

She unslung her rifle for the first time, checked the load, activated the scope and levelled it, looking through a sea-green glow that eliminated shadows while illuminating blind spots automatically. It also automatically compensated for the darkness if she lost daylight or the artificial kind completely, or even partially, a function which had proved very useful before now. She had a three-shot option, BASE, AP and HI-EX, so she set the switch to AP-Armour Piercing-and wondered whether or not she knew what she was doing. If she didn't, could she outrun it in her state? Yes. Escape it? Maybe not...

It came around the corner, so she cut the psychic chatter out of her mind, took careful aim and started firing...

Y

Chris Redfield pistol-whipped a Zombie so hard he nearly broke his fingers, threw it in a shoulder throw to the floor and stamped on its neck so hard its skull splintered as well as the neck. Once you got used to these things they weren't scary, or even really dangerous, he reflected. Slow as snails, about as agile as a brick and totally devoid of intellect... Hell, he could have danced a jig ten metres in front of one and still run rings around it literally before it got anywhere near him. The things were only dangerous in large numbers-unless you were Serena, he thought, recalling her terrifying display of utterly lethal accuracy earlier-or if you tried to fight them hand to hand, when a scratch, let alone a bite, could infect you with a Virus that would do worse than kill you. One that had no cure…

He sprinted on, slipping for a moment on his blood-slick boot, trying and barely managing to keep some sense of direction in his mind so he didn't accidentally end up running in circles on the long road to nowhere. His head hurt and he suspected that his skull was cracked, blood was running down his face and scalp, dripping from his chin and jaw to the floor, leaving a clear trail, but he didn't stop. He /couldn't/ stop, too many good people had died on this mission already and he wasn't going to be responsible for any more. Messed up Aaron was, but he could walk, talk, think and even still fight if he absolutely had to, which meant that Orders to leave anyone incapable or wounded behind dead could go take a cold shower in Hell as far as he was concerned.

Did he recognise that hallway…? Yes! He was almost there!

When he turned the corner and saw the what he'd been running for, what went through his head at the sight of what was in his way was indescribable, even by the standards of what he'd already seen and done over the whole of the day. He said several bad words, very loudly…

Y

Aaron Bradley was so badly injured that movement beyond mere breathing was akin to sadistic torture. Every nerve ending felt like it was set in a slow-burning fire, every part of his body and every bone was telling him in intense detail that he hurt more than he could imagine. His mind was so numbed from the haze of pain he was floating in that it was all he could really do to stay conscious somehow, anything going on in reality was almost beyond him.

That he was going to die was a fact never far from his mind. He'd seen men die from slow-killing injuries before, bleeding to death inside and out, battle shock preventing someone from realising they'd lost a limb until they died from the trauma. He /was/ bleeding inside, he could tell from the increasing pains in his chest and the light-headed feeling he was suffering, which was getting wore and worse. That was why he hadn't, ever, dropped the gun, the Desert Eagle being clasped /very/ tight in his good hand. Sooner than faint and never wake up or simply throw up his guts until there was nothing left inside him, he'd swallow a bullet and die clean…

When he noticed, on a dim level of awareness that slowly filtered into his mind through what was left of his senses, the first Zombie moans coming closer, he almost took care of matters. One fate was worse than death to him, even worse than being Undead-being eaten /by/ the Undead, your rotting Corpse violated and abused in every way imaginable by things which belonged in a grave a long time since. It took a long moment for the increasingly faint hope of rescue to reassert itself, to save his life. Then he heard more moans, many more. It took no thought at all to absorb the fact that several Zombies had tracked him down, not a shock since he was half-dead and bleeding from cuts and gashes everywhere on his body from shards of shattered glass, facts which had to make him a good meal for such creatures. He couldn't even defend himself…

/This is it/ he thought.

He placed the gun barrel in his mouth, his finger tightened on the trigger-the roar of sudden gunfire was so abrupt, such a shock that he almost died. The trigger was a hairline away from shoving his brains against the ceiling with a bullet when it happened…

Y

/_Get this wrong, your dead_/ was the one thought that ran through her mind as she began her assault.

The Behemoth was eight feet tall, four wide and had the physical dimensions of a tank crossed with a boulder built of reinforced titanium around carved granite. Taking it on without air support, an Anti-Tank missile or six to hand or, at the very least, a large amount of high explosives to hand was Suicide. She'd killed hundreds of people, killed almost anything that had ever walked, slithered or crawled one way or another. She'd used every weapon known to man and woman to do so, short of a Nuke. She'd seen death in every way, shape and form imaginable and worse… So she could say, with complete authority, that she was sure that was the case. She was going to die here…

Well, that was the bad news. The good news was that the Reaper had never learnt how to quit, ever, while Serena Baccarin, once Liparti, had survived anything and everything the world had to offer from the age of seventeen, starting with her Mothers Murder, her Fathers Insanity, then death in every way that could and couldn't be imagined on the path that had led her here. If the whole world couldn't force her to lie down and die, the Behemoth didn't stand a chance in Hell. Time to make her mark again…

/_Breathe out. Breathe in_/.

She fired, the bullet entered the "mouth" hole with perfect trajectory and failed to have any visible impact at all. She shifted to the nose and tried again, but still had no visible effect. A slight smile creased her lips. She switched to HI-EX-High Explosive-and fired right down its throat through its mouth again. She saw the silent explosion flash inside its gullet-bits and pieces of /something/ scattered out and around its "face", but no liquid. So it didn't bleed? She could live with that. She could smash stone and bend steel just as easily as she could rip and tear flesh…

Y

Seven Zombies were within touching distance, with one more step taking them closer, of Aaron Bradley. Chris screamed something even he didn't understand in a demented roar of fury and pain, put on a burst of speed and charged the Zombies like a Linebacker in a football game. Some of them stopped, some of them didn't, one started to turn-he crashed into the nearest and took it right off of its feet, hit the next two as well and collapsed all three like a set of Dominoes.

His shoulder crashed into the Zombies chest, snapped bones and crushed internal organs. It coughed, before he grabbed its neck and head in a Wrestling hold and broke its neck with his bare hands. He shot the second Zombie in the stomach /through/ the first, the Desert Eagle easily smashing a shell through flesh and bone and on into more. It gave him enough time to wrench free and shoot the wounded Zombie in the head to finish it off before he slammed his boot heel down on the thirds head with such force that its head literally exploded up and down his leg. He punched the fourth in the face, smashing it from its feet with a broken nose, shot the fifth in the head-and went over backwards with a frantic yelp as his blood-slicked boots traction on the steel floor finally failed, the force of the shot throwing off his balance entirely, knocking him off his feet. The Zombie was down, but so was he.

The injured Zombie lurched about on the floor, unable to rise, but managed to slither closer using its claw-like hands even as Chris frantically tried to shove himself away-its teeth sank deep into his boot. Horrified and utterly disgusted, Chris repeatedly kicked it in the head even while he said a silent Prayer in thanks of tough boot leather. Bones snapped and cracked, flesh tore, his kicks finally snapped its neck on top of damaging its brain and it slumped again, dead. He was too late, though, the last two were going for Aaron, who wasn't even aware they were there-

Aaron lurched upright with a roar of deep anger and backhanded the nearest Zombie so hard that, with his immense strength, bulk and the pistol in his hand combined, he broke every bone in its body from the skull to the spine. Dead before it hit the floor with an awful wet thump, Aaron, not fully aware of what he was doing, lurched around and emptied his entire clip into the last Zombie even as it scratched at his shirt. Five of the hits would have killed outright anything human, two hit the creature in the head and effectively decapitated it. Blood exploded everywhere as the creatures head burst like an over-ripe Pumpkin, even as flesh was torn out of its chest and back to slap against the wall surrounded by slick splatters of blood. The last Zombie collapsed, mangled almost beyond recognition and dead all over again-before Aaron's knees buckled and he collapsed to a kneeling position with a resounding clang…

"AARON-!" Chris shouted, leaping to his feet and almost materialising by Aaron's side just fast enough to catch him and prevent him from collapsing altogether through a massive application of brute strength. Aaron's dead weight was almost more than he could handle alone…

Aaron's face was pasty white, his eyes were terribly bloodshot, even his lips were pale. Spittle was running down from his mouth while beads of sweat were almost flooding down his face, his uniform already soaked. Blood, dried and fresh, was tracked everywhere on the big mans body, as were cuts and bruises almost too numerous to count, with massively varying levels of injury apparent. Aaron was also barely conscious, a fact that didn't surprise Chris at all.

He'd never seen anyone hurt as bad as this upright and mobile, let alone conscious and shooting. Hell, the last person he'd seen in close to this state had been in Intensive Care in Hospital. As he recalled, the Doctors hadn't been hopeful he'd pull through either…

Aaron's head twitched, then he slowly looked around at Chris. His eyes took far too long to focus given their proximity, but finally did. "Ch-Chris?" Aaron managed, his voice so faint that Chris had to strain to hear it.

"Yes, I'm here. Your safe, Aaron" Chris replied, with what he hoped was conviction in his voice. Obviously, he later reflected, it wasn't.

Aaron actually managed a weak chuckle at that somehow, then all expression left his battered face and eyes. "This is Hell…Chris, not even…Death…is sacred…here. Safety is an…illusion…of possibility, so do me a…favour" Aaron said slowly, having increasing trouble focusing on anything as time went on, let alone speaking with his broken jaw.

"Name it" replied Chris, not even considering it as he worked out a way to carry and, if necessary, drag Aaron all the way to the exit if he had too-without killing himself, or Aaron. He /could/ do it, all that was important was /how/-which was why Aaron's next words stopped him dead.

"Do yourself a favour…leave me here with a bullet in my gun, run…and…/LIVE!" snarled Aaron, his exclamation carrying more verbal force than Chris would have thought possible under the circumstances. All that Chris could, or would, do after that was stop and stare into the tormented eyes of the injured man for what seemed like the moment before the End of the World…

Y

Serena aim was flawless, better than perfect, she didn't hit anything nine times out of ten, she hit it EVERY time. That was what informed her that the Behemoths eyes had some kind of impervious invisible lid over them when she shot it with an explosive bullet that exploded against its face but did no apparent damage-there was no question at all she'd hit what she was aiming at. The thing didn't bleed, internal detonations were having no visible effect asides from blowing out bits it could clearly function without occasionally and wherever it kept its brain was a point she couldn't reach.

Her strategy of hit something vital with an attack from the inside and slow it down or stop it long enough for them to get away was very clearly not working. Chucking a Frag grenade down its throat might have had some effect, but even high-velocity explosive bullets just weren't doing the job. She could have brought a minitiurised bomb the size of her hand that would have blown a hole right through a tank in here with her, but she'd decided that all she needed was an anti-personnel effort…

That settled it, next time she went on a mission even remotely resembling this one she was bringing focused C4 charges at the very least, "just in case". For now, she'd just have to improvise. Fortunately, she was very good at that.

She listed her options and ran through them, fast-then made a decision. She holstered her rifle down her back, turned and ran for the lab, as fast as her battered body could manage. She was no Chemist, but she could build a bomb or ammunition out of just about anything and she /did/ know her Periodic Table. If the lab just had what she thought she could use to force her way past this things hide… She stopped, dead.

Delta Force Colonel Mickey Webb had been lying in a pool of blood where she was standing, his own blood. He'd been physically incapable, fatally injured and worse. He'd been slowly drowning in his own blood, bleeding heavily inside and out much to her satisfaction. Now he was /gone/.

The thick trail of blood led right through the lab, across the battered, torn-up remains of the Zombies he'd killed and out the other doors. It went on into the corridor and disappeared from view, at no point the amount of blood he had to be loosing making it look anything even remotely like a possibility that he could be conscious, let alone mobile, even in such a limited state that he could only crawl. The man was /DEAD/…

She ground her teeth so hard that she almost cracked several. What she was thinking at that moment defied description but involved terrible pain and greater suffering. Her path was drowned in blood and littered with bodies, the faces something that never bothered her at night-but his would. She honestly didn't think that she'd ever met someone so deserving of killing, a fact that was so fascinating by itself-she'd killed innocents in their sleep, soldiers on the battlefield and Psychopathic Madmen all over the world. She'd terrified Drug Dealers, Arms Traders and any number of scumbag "Hard Men" who had thought themselves safe hidden away in an underworld no-one could search, or even find. Her death-count had passed triple figures long ago. /But/ she'd never really /hated/ anyone before now-excepting the men who'd butchered her Mother and driven her Father Insane, that was.

Mickey Webb didn't have any idea just how bad the things she was going to do to his Corpse were, let alone what she was going to do to him while he was, somehow, still alive-but that could all wait, he had no escape. She contented herself with the fact that he had most likely infected himself with the T-Virus dragging his ruined body over the remains of the destroyed Zombies and got to work.

Her eyes flickered across the lab and found a secured station containing Drugs and Chemicals for a variety of purposes, some she couldn't even comprehend, thankfully. She could have opened it with a paperclip in ten seconds flat, but a quick search produced a key on one of the Zombies remains. She opened the station-and smiled like the proverbial Cheshire Cat.

/NOW/ she was in business…

Y

Under other circumstances, Chris would have punched Aaron in the face for saying what he just had. That just wasn't how he did things, a fact Aaron was well aware of, he /knew/ that. /But, Aaron was so badly injured that just one more strike in a vital area, even in a less serious part perhaps, would pretty much finish him off. He could strangle him, but he needed the huge man conscious and alert, not barely breathing and semi-conscious at best…

He settled for grabbing the front of Aaron's shirt, drenched in blood now, dragging the man's face down so they had to stare straight into each others eyes and shooting him a look that would have made Webb think twice before saying anything else.

"Aaron, quick word of advice: DO NOT EVER ASK ME TO LEAVE ANYONE BEHIND! It will NOT happen! Clear!" shouted Chris, right into Aaron's face at such a volume Aaron attempted to physically retreat. The big man flinched, then shrugged helplessly.

"Chris…I can't walk by…myself, can barely stand, and…nearly killed myself flailing around like a madman just…trying to kill two of…those things. I'm almost blind and…a physical…wreck. I can't even see well…enough to shoot…straight and probably couldn't…hit a Barn door…at five paces. You don't have the muscle to carry me…your hurt…and you'll need both hands…free to fight and defend yourself if…either of us is going to get…out of here alive. Just /what/…are you actually…planning, to do?" Aaron managed to get out slowly, even his breathing becoming increasingly painful.

Chris just grinned in a way which suggested he was the Mouse who'd not only dodged the Mousetrap and the Cat but had his cheese and was going to eat it too.

Y

Serena noticed the eight-sided "Umbrella" symbol on all of the stock in the secure station and frowned, but she had considerably more important things to worry about now. Filling the largest flask she could find, a foot-tall goose-neck one, with a combination of acids and chemicals that would have made any Chemist run away screaming, she capped it with a sturdy bung and took off back towards the Behemoth.

It didn't take her long to meet it, it was still tearing up the corridor and occasionally ripping huge, deep gashes in the walls without apparent effort, getting closer all the time. Its arms slammed upwards into the roof, claws digging deep, then it wrenched so hard that the roof was partially torn down. If she'd had any doubt at all about what had happened to the mutilated Zombie remains she'd found earlier, she didn't now. How and why it would have hidden the remains as it had wasn't a thing of interest to her.

She drew back her arm, then hurled the flask from twenty foot away with a throwing arm any Pitcher would envy for the rest of their life. It span end over end-she snapped out a pistol and shot the flask just before it made contact. Glass shards exploded everywhere, acids and chemicals drenching its head like the summer rain concentrated from the whole season into a five-second Monsoon.

The Behemoths head started to smoke, so did the coverings of its eyes. That got an odd noise from it, a rumble so deep sounded from inside its chest it was as though she'd opened a Gate into Hell. Ignoring it, she pulled her second pistol and started shooting, focusing on the spot on its head precisely where the flasks contents had hit most directly. Flecks of skin and whatever passed for its flesh started to rupture under the hail of steel-jacketed sharp metal-a bullet ricocheted off of dense bone, striking sparks before screeching away. Its head caught fire even as parts of its scalp and face started to literally melt. That /definitely/ got its attention, it was starting to make random movements and jerk in bizarre fashion, as thought it was suffering real /pain/. Looked like she'd hit on something…

Her pistols ran empty. Without bothering to reload, she ejected both clips and drew her rifle. It was still set to HI-EX, just what she wanted. She aimed at the same spot, then opened fire. She yet again made a silent note to thank the rifles designers in Area 51-assuming she ever actually met them-for managing to create a weapon which would "reload" itself as long as you didn't exceed a set amount of shots over a set period of time. That she didn't understand the science was a given, that she knew it worked was all that mattered.

More skin and flesh was blasted clear, gleaming bone as hard as granite started to chip away as the explosive shells did their work. Her shot-sensor was redlined, she was almost at her limit for the next hour, but it looked like it just might do the trick-a massive fragment of bone flew free, exposing something grey, rough-edged and terribly mobile, as though the brain itself was shifting around inside the damaged skull, as though it knew what was coming… That odd rumbling noise sounded again, higher-pitched this time, longer and loud. Was it howling in agony or fury?

More to the point, who cared?

She switched back to AP and put a perfect shot straight through the gap in its skull-or was that armour?-into its brain, or whatever it had that passed for one. A spurt of yellow gooish liquid, kind of like honey mixed with bits of grey bacon she thought, erupted from the impact point instantly. The Behemoth jerked so hard it almost fell over, then staggered badly and started shaking uncontrollably. It was still coming, but in that state it couldn't have caught, let alone killed, even Aaron in the state he was in without falling on him by accident…

She smiled, a cruel smile of pursed lips and a promise of pain.

"Tell the Devil the Reapers been busy again" she said, her voice colder than Arctic ice. Then she set her rifle to HI-EX and aimed one last time.

The last shot she fired, the one that maxed out her magazine, went dead centre into its brain. After the tiny-but-powerful explosion erupted in the core of its cranium amidst the one vital organ she sincerely hoped it couldn't function, or even survive, without, the inside of its head hit the roof and walls-literally.

It stood utterly still for a long, long moment, then, with the inevitability of the greatest of trees finally falling to the labour of ages of both women and men, it slowly leaned over-before crashing to the floor with an almighty "BOOM", the awful crashing sound added to by the screech of torn and buckling steel giving way all around it.

Serena Baccarin paused to catch her breath, then wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, irritably noticing the still bleeding wound. It was a flesh wound, not incapacitating or even particularly painful, but she needed to fix it. The last thing she needed was something in here following her out on the trail of no more than her own blood… First things first, though.

It was the work of seconds to reload her pistols, then she started to head back to pick up Webb's trail even as she pulled off her glove to bind her wound…

Y

"I feel like freaking Moses" muttered Chris, a random memory from a childhood learning of the Bible-in part-floating through his mind for no good reason, sparking the words. Aaron, behind him, one good arm and hand wrapped around Chris's shoulders, just snorted, his grip briefly tightening. He didn't bother with the comment that that would make him a man being led to the promised land, appropriate as that would have really been.

Apart from a single Zombie already missing both legs-someone had taken an axe to it after it had "risen again", apparently-they'd almost made it to the evacuation point. He'd kicked in the lone Zombies head, literally, then kept going. He had to, really, only Willpower was keeping him on his feet. He'd been confident he could stay on his feet and act as Aaron's walking crutch for long enough to get the injured man to the escape tunnel, where Serena would be waiting to help-but every muscle was screaming now, his back felt like he was being lowered onto a Blast Furnace slowly, he was seeing black spots and could taste blood in his mouth from where he'd almost bitten through his lip to keep from screaming.

How Aaron was mobile at all was something he didn't want to consider and could never understand, that kind of pain ate someone alive, chewed them up and spat them out. The longer this went on, the more respect he was developing for the big Engineer. Aaron Bradley was the kind of man who would be actually dead long before he ever gave up...

They reached the corridor-and Chris's eyes lit up like Searchlights at the sight of the battered and bloody but ever lethal, and lovely, Serena. He wanted to pick up Aaron and run at the sight, but even the thought almost caused him to faint so he developed a massive grin and forced himself onwards with a new sense of hope. That grin faded when he saw her crouch on the floor to inspect something-blood, he could see it now. She was looking at blood, smeared into the ground in the shape of a boot print...

She shifted smoothly to stare directly at him, looked him straight in the eyes and said one word that almost killed him, that told him everything he needed to know.

"Webb".

Y

Serena and Chris supported Aaron one under each arm, being careful of his broken arm and ribs, then effectively picked him up and got as close as they could to a run. She'd pulled out a Stopwatch and her expression had told him everything. She was glad that it had, she didn't want to tell him the truth.

**_09:03_**

**_09:02_**

**_09:01_**

Aaron was sliding slowly in and out of consciousness, but mainly out. He was heading towards Delirium and Fever, which would eventually lead to a Coma and then death without proper treatment-and soon. That much she knew without question, she'd seen it happen, her Medical training just confirmed it. The fact that he was still even slightly alert said he had a Constitution of solid rock, but no one could last forever. They /had/ to get out of here/now/.

**_09:01_**

**_09:00_**

**_08:59_**

It occurred to her that most facilities like this had warning signals and sirens which were activated at a specific point if the Self-Destruct system was activated, warning valuable staff to evacuate now to a safe distance. It also occurred to her that Robert Creig was an Insane Sociopath who had killed everyone in the facility without hesitation just to preserve his "intellectual property" as he presumerably saw it-the Virus samples in the case Chris was still carrying. He'd have shut down the warning systems just in case of survivors by some freak event or incredible luck, to make sure they didn't know when to escape or even that they needed to. She'd done the whole world a favour by evacuating the inside of his skull, nothing and no one on Earth could have predicted what was going to come next from such a madman...

**_08:59_**

**_08:58_**

**_08:57_**

Could she hear _Helicopter_ engines?

**_08:57_**

**_08:56_**

**_08:55_**

Maybe the question wasn't /how/ Webb had escaped despite his injuries, but /who/ had come for him...?

They reached the tunnel entrance that led out into the damaged old refinery-and everything but the immediate abruptly became a moot point as every sense she had went off as though warning of Apocalypse five seconds before her ears caught the slightest trace of sound where there should /not/ have been any. She was already moving when the three figures came out of nowhere. That saved her life...

Y

Chris Redfield didn't even have time to blink before a tall man came out of nowhere, rappelling down a rope clad head-to-foot in jet black Commando gear, landed right in front of him and pulled an Uzi. The man had it against Chris's chest over his heart, he pulled the trigger-Serena straight-armed him so hard that Chris felt rather than heard the mans jaw snap as he span from his feet, tumbling to the ground with a thump of dead weight. Chris barely even registered the slash of red-hot pain that creased his ribs momentarily...

Chris still hadn't even blinked when the two other men went after Serena with an extremely complicated Martial Arts routine-not that they had a problem fighting dirty, as one suddenly threw a handful of dust into Serena's face. A kick cracked into her side hard, an elbow snapped her head around, blood exploding from her mouth. A knife flicked out, she barely shifted fast enough to avoid it doing far more than drawing a line of blood across her throat. Off-balance and already injured, she couldn't keep up and a slashing kick took away her legs. She slammed down to her back with a grunt of pain-she caught an axe-handle kick at her breastbone with crossed arms as a parry, but the second man drove his knife into her side. It went deep and came out dark, dripping liquid ruby red up to the hilt...

Chris snapped out of his paralysis at the sight of the woman he was falling so deeply for being killed in front of him in less than ten seconds, but the maelstrom of lethal combat was so quick and savage that he was almost too late. Without time to think, Chris dropped Aaron and charged, aiming for the man with the knife. The man saw him coming, but shifted to a combat stance in challenge-Chris didn't even bother trying, he simply launched himself at the big man like a human missile feet-first.

The expression on the mans darkened face was almost comical as Chris flew straight into him boots-first, knocking the man flat with an awful crack as his whole weight slammed the man to the ground. Chris landed on top of him, but had to roll frantically away as the mans knife slashed his forearm. Even injured and down, the man was lethal, armed and ready. Wonderful, this was going to be fun...

The man struggled to his feet, obviously hurt, but displayed no sign of his injuries when a perfect counter with the knife nearly took Chris's fingers off at an attempted punch, the blade cutting deep. Chris howled in pain, but kept his focus, backed off, circled-the man leapt and slashed his knife right across Chris's ribs in a wave of agonising pain and blood that should have dropped Chris to the floor in an instant, in agony that couldn't /be/ imagined.

Chris had had enough pain for one lifetime today, he didn't intend to suffer any more. Ever.

He channelled all of the pain and anger into undiluted white-hot rage, then screamed and crashed in as he went off like an erupting Volcano. The man's knife bit deep just under his ribs, but Chris head-butted the man so hard that he drove the taller man to his knees-just before he slammed home an almighty knee to the groin with such force that he lifted the man clean off of the floor. The man reeled over, collapsed backwards and sideways with a very strange high-pitched sound. Chris just stamped on his throat so hard that he almost decapitated the man. /One/ down…

Suddenly arms were wrapped around his head from behind with such force that he felt his skull start to crack. His air was cut off in a Choke Hold instantly and, before he could do more than gasp, hard, sharp fingers bit deep, deep inside his head wound… The pain this caused him was so indescribably awful that every part of him simply shut down in a moment in a final, desperate attempt to escape it…

Y

Serena saw Chris fall as the man she'd broken the jaw of woke up and jumped him from behind, using his injured body against him in the worst way possible-the sound which escaped her lips shouldn't have come from anything human. The pain in her side was nothing, the wound was nothing, they hadn't learnt the first lesson of the Reaper: if she wasn't dead, you were.

She shoved up with both arms so hard and fast that the man attacking her had to hop backwards and nearly fell, staggering badly. She had both hands on the floor beside her head and launched herself at him feet-first faster than he could follow, the heels of her boots slamming straight into his breastbone just over his heart with all her weight and muscle behind it. He was wearing Body Armour, but it was the bulletproof kind, not intended to stop sharp impacts from blunt objects in vital areas. His ribs snapped and cracked, his breastbone snapped and a big shard punctured his heart, a fact she knew from the ghastly expression on his face, the sudden blood on his lips. She rolled backwards and over to see the last man drop Chris, pull a pair of hunting knives with razor points and serrated edges from leg sheaths and smile past the pain. Not even a flicker of worry or troubled thought, despite the fact they'd killed Chris rather than her, which made them all dead...

He was a professional-and showed it by coming at her a split-second later, before nine of ten people could have even breathed in. Her knives were in her hands before he got there, her right parried his left while her left tore right through his right forearm, ruining his arm and drawing a grunt of pain. He dropped the knife but drew a fast defensive figure eight with the other over her chest, very fast, but not good enough. Knife fighting was all about coordination and reflexes, you had to fight before you thought or you didn't have time. If someone came at you with a knife and knew how to use it you were dead if you didn't, or if you were stupid enough to think that you were just better somehow. The key wasn't confidence, it was simple cold skill and the ability to be ruthless enough to use it to win. That she /did/ have, in prodigious quantity...

It was over very quickly. He struck three more times, she parried twice and slipped under the third. Her first strike was to his good shoulder joint, her second to his left thigh right to the bone, the last a crosswise sweep right across the belly with both knives. He fell to one knee as his last knife fell useless to the ground, dead on his feet as slippery red intestines spilled out of his belly-she grabbed a double handful, wrapped them around his throat and wrenched for all she was worth. He fell to the floor, writhing, choking, trying to scream, both of his useless arms twitching frantically...his tongue and eyes stood out, his face went completely white, he coughed one last time and went utterly still.

"CHRIS!" she shouted, trying to get any kind of response from the young mans still form. Nothing happened at all in response, making her swear a blue streak.

She didn't let go for another few seconds, just to be sure, then ran over to Chris. That she was too late was something she simply couldn't accept, even when she saw that his chest wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing /or/ moving in any way at all...

Y

Chris Redfield was dimly, so dimly, aware of things fading away to a kind of grey-black at the last as he died. It was so very quiet, he couldn't help but think, even as he drifted off towards somewhere peaceful, or at least that was what it felt like, he couldn't focus on anything at all...

Warm air suddenly flooded his starved lungs as a sharp pain in his chest started, with terrible abruptness. His chest was moving and it wasn't him-more air flooded into his lungs, he felt a surge in his chest at the second pain. His heart was beating again, he could breathe...air air air /AIR!

He jerked upright with savage speed, mouth opening and closing, trying to suck in all the air in the world with one breath. Sights and sounds flooded in, overwhelming a mind starved of any input for almost too long, forcing him to roll over onto his chest and lean on his arms, choking, coughing, gasping, shivering and shaking uncontrollably all at once. He slowly, dimly realised that someone was pounding him on the back, trying to help him clear his lungs, breathe... He caught sight of the battered Aaron sitting upright on the stone and sand ground, clutching his broken arm gingerly, a moment before he registered that Serena, who was pounding him on the back, had just saved his life by Resuscitating him...

She abruptly grabbed him and span him to face her, looking him in the eyes. Then she simply leaned in and kissed him full on the lips, Chris never realising that she did it in part to hide the tear she could never admit to that was running down her face. After all, she was a cold-blooded utterly ruthless professional killing machine who didn't have any care for human life at all. How could she care for just some young man, even younger than her, who was so simple he could never even begin to understand her world?

Y

Serena, for a long, glorious moment, forgot where she was, who she was, what she was doing and who she was with. She just screened it out completely, let it all slide and enjoyed the simple act of passion involved in such easy intimacy. It felt so /good/... Then reality kicked down the door as an alarm went off inside her head and she realised that Aaron was staring at the two of them, goggle-eyed. She pulled clear of the still-stunned Chris and glared at Aaron with such a lethal expression on her face that he literally shrank back away from her.

"Not /ONE/ word to anyone, do not even /think/ of so much as /SUGGESTING/ that you saw this or anything like it happen, or I will personally make sure you never feel safe again. Am I clear?" snapped Serena, her voice glacial. His only response was frantic nodding-she got the impression that he was too scared to speak. Good, even though she seemed to have that effect on most people if they'd seen her work anyway...

She turned around and, carefully, peeled away the remains of the pressure bandage on the still-seated Chris's head. Blood was already drenching his face again, some had even touched hers, but he was too out of it still to realise just how badly he was hurt. Removing the bandage fully dropped a great dollop of blood over his face, but let her pad and then tightly bandage the wound, this time wrapping the bandages around his head. It slowed down the bleeding but, again, didn't stop it. If they didn't get to real help soon he was going to bleed to death, so was Aaron if none of his other injuries killed him first. They had to get out of here, now...

**_06:09_**

**_06:08_**

**_06:07_**

"Chris, get UP! On your FEET, Soldier! Were not done yet!" snapped Serena, literally dragging the battered Chris to his feet before, in near-desperation, slapping him so hard she almost drew blood. That actually worked, he blinked, shook his head slowly, then coughed and blinked again before shaking his head hard, quickly and sharply, as though to wake himself up. Then he looked at her and managed something of a smile...

The two of them could just about manage a staggering run, with Aaron's added effective dead weight it was more of a fast jog, especially when adding in the fact that Chris apparently couldn't se straight. Serena took most of the weight and had to lead the way, but forced them forwards at some pace through sheer force of will. As they moved, just after they'd cleared the centre of the ruined refinery, she heard the "Whup Whup Whup" of helicopter engines coming close again. She caught a glimpse of a jet black trooper chopper with side-mounted automatic cannons-not something the Iraqi's would ever have, she was totally sure-which was totally lacking in identifying marks, glancing through a breach in the damaged roof at just the right moment. Thankfully, it was irrelevant now. There was no way the Pilot or crew could know where they'd gone and the truck was under Desert Camouflage, you'd have had to have known where to look to find it.

**_05:40_**

**_05:39_**

**_05:38_**

They reached the truck in little enough time, Chris dragged Aaron aboard while she released the hooks restraining the camouflage and let the wind just blow it away. It carried no identifying marks, after all. That done, she leapt in the drivers seat, turned the engine over and floored the accelerator so fast she nearly rolled the truck as she wrenched the wheel from side to side to break free of the clinging sand. The wind was waking up and blowing stronger and stronger, whipping sand against the trucks sides, doors and windows. No problem, the whipping wind would make it harder for anyone to zero them by eye or sound. More to the point, in the state they were all in they needed every advantage they could get.

She could have find the Evacuation Chopper with her eyes shut walking backwards in the Desert with no Compass. Stopping next to it, she left the truck running, rolled under the camouflage and up against the concrete wall. The lock for the maintenance door was surprisingly sophisticated, but she was still inside in seconds. Inside it was the work of moments to activate the power, disconnect the fuel lines and start up the lift-thankfully, the paranoid Dictator in Baghdad made sure that all of his escape routes were regularly checked, double and triple checked and always ready to go at a moments notice. Everything under way, she slapped on the switches to open the main door, rolled under it back outside and wrenched out camouflage netting that was pinned down in the way.

Chris was out of the truck and standing ready, still woozy but willing to help. She showed him how the rails had to be laid out and he staggered to one side while she did the other, allowing the chopper to be rolled outside on its strut feet even as the electronics warmed up. The two of them grabbed Aaron and manhandled him into the rear, strapping him into the seat securely before she took the pilots seat and Chris the co-pilots, both of them putting on radio headsets so that they could talk.

She hit the switch to unfold the rotor wings and started up the engines, the rotors automatically starting to rotate-she heard the beat of heavier helicopter engines than their four-seater fast passenger effort and looked around. The trooper had found them, not surprising given the dust trail of the truck. Thankfully, it was slower and less manoeuvrable than their own and was coming from just over the Refinery. If they could just get into the air, they could loose it easy. /_If_/.

Their chopper got to take-off speed quick, thanks to a sturdy, well-maintained engine and good design. She heaved it up and off of the ground so fast Aaron yelped in pain, rotated and slammed the throttles against their stops. The trooper was going to be in shooting range in ten seconds, they weren't even under way yet. This was going to be /close/...

**_03:30_**

**_03:29_**

**_03:28_**

Their chopper leaned forwards and started to pound through the air, fast, even as she kept it low to build up speed as fast as possible. It wasn't enough, as cannon fire whipped through the air they'd been in a second before with a blur of grey steel before clipping the tail of their chopper with a "thunk" that jerked the whole machine-just before Serena took evasive action by nearly stalling the chopper through a fast vertical climb which took them out of the line of fire. They lost most of their momentum, though, and the trooper just reoriented and tried again, forcing her to throw the chopper into a sharp turn to avoid the worst even as the salvo clipped the fuselage.

They weren't going to escape by flying away at speed, which left plan B. She really was going to wish her rifle was functioning in about ten seconds... She hauled them around hard and flew straight at the trooper, ducking and diving, dodging and weaving to avoid its fire even as a stray shell cracked the windscreen. Then she grinned at Chris, a feral grin which made him very worried. "Take the wheel! One pass by the cockpit! My side!" she shouted, pulling both pistols and releasing her seatbelt before forcing her door open.

"YOU are INSANE!" Chris bellowed over the screaming air and heavy metallic thump suddenly allowed in by the open door, even as he grabbed the controls and frantically fought to maintain control. She heard a sharp thump somewhere behind Aaron and cursed as she smelt smoke. The trooper had hit something they needed, she could only hope that it wasn't critical...

They were right next to the big trooper even as it shot at them, she could almost see the pilots inside even as she loaded her pistols, one with Armour Piercing, one with Incendiaries-then let fly at point-blank range into the troopers cockpit. It was stupid, suicidal, wind shear, gravity, even the laws of physics were against her hitting anything, but that had never stopped her. It didn't this time, as the windscreen shattered under multiple impacts before disintegrating, blasts of fire erupting everywhere even as the pilots jerked under the impacts of several shots, bullets destroying instruments and controls...

The trooper fell out of the sky like a rock, totally out of control, its engines screaming like Banshees under strain they weren't deigned to withstand-then it hit the ground, hard, shattering on impact as still-spinning rotor blades were thrown tens of metres across the Desert. Shards of debris and bits and pieces of people were thrown any and every way with a terrible sense of finality, its fuel tanks cooking off and exploding seconds later. The thought that there might have been people not involved in anything that had occurred today in the trooper's passenger hold never bothered her...

**_01:19_**

**_01:18_**

**_01:17_**

Chris swung them around and pointed them back the way she'd been going, before, silently, fainting. She just had time to slam the door and grab the controls before the choppers slow dive became dangerous, then levelled them off. The chopper hung steady in the air, the controls responded normally, fuel was fine-it was over, they were out of here. She grinned a slightly manic grin before pulling up and setting the throttles back to max.

/_Groovy_/.

After all of this, she wasn't even going to pay attention to a Border patrol she could bypass in her sleep. She almost absently noticed that her chest wound was still bleeding freely, if not heavily, although it was starting to clot. Idiots hadn't even known how deep to drive the knife. They might have been professional killers, but they were strictly amateur league in her world. Where she lived, you either had it or you didn't. She did, she was alive, end of discussion.

An almighty roar sounded from not that far away, followed by a blinding white light as the Self-Destruct utterly immolated the complex at last. She just glanced at the case still held in a death-grip by Chris and shook her head. Mission accomplished, but that was the last time she /ever/ so simply accepted a mission involving the T-Virus and anything connected to it. Just a scratch, a bite, it could have been her down there...

The Exceptional Tasks Commission was going to get a Report it wouldn't believe on this one, even though it was all going to be true. She wondered what Chris and Aaron would say? Of course, she would get to read their Reports before they were published so she'd know sooner rather than later...

She would later always smile at the memory of the expression of their CIA contact in the north when they got out of the helicopter just as he started to ask for the Password. She'd actually though he really was dead for a moment, rather than in deep shock...

Something which never made her smile was the fact that, months later, she would discover the near-total lack of memory Aaron and Chris later displayed regarding their Mission and the events and people concerned was a permanent condition. They didn't have Amnesia, their conscious minds had simply been unable to cope with such constant and extraordinary physical and mental trauma to the degree that they had dealt with it by blanking everything possible. The massive head trauma both men had suffered left what little they /did/ remember as barely more than disjointed images that could sometimes wake them up screaming in the night for no reason they could ever name. Neither of them would /ever/ fully recall just what went on and who did what down there, in Hell...

That made the fact that Chris recalled with perfect clarity every single one of their personal encounters even more annoying, since he half-remembered events the two of them had been closely involved in and knew that she'd saved his life more than once. However, the good things that came from that more than made up for it...

/June 8th 1996, the USA, the Pentagon/

The single gunshot from the Generals office could be heard from halfway across the building when it happened. Security were there in two minutes flat, weapons drawn and ready, but no-one was fast enough to stop a horrified soldier who had served under the old man years ago breaking down the locked door and smashing his way inside-where he saw a sight from Hell he would never, could never forget.

Dressed in full dress uniform, General Lucas Moralto had, as calmly and coolly as he had done everything in his life, dealt with his personal affairs and effects before locking shut his office door. He had then written out the note, before drawing his service revolver-the first weapon he'd ever carried as an officer-placing the muzzle against the inside of his mouth and pulling the trigger, taking the back of his head off.

That was the way the soldier found him. All that the note said-he had no family, after all, the Military had always been everything to him-was:

I never broke a promise 

_Nor forsook a trust_

_Until now_

_I hope that God can one day forgive me_

_I hope that he can help them_

_Until then I do my duty one last time_

_Goodbye_

General Lucas Bassire Moralto 

**_Born January 5th 1927_**

**_Died June 8th 1996_**

/End of Chapter Ten. All Reviews welcomed./

P.S. This is really "The End". Chapter Eleven will be an Epilogue of sorts. Everyone out there, all Reviews, flames or otherwise, are welcomed.


	11. Chapter 11

For all disclaimers: See Chapters 1 and 2.

Note: The previous Chapter was the end of the main story, this Chapter is an epilogue catching up with what has happened to some of the characters since-leading straight into "Operation: Falling S.T.A.R.S." since you ask.

EPILOGUE Lost Souls 

/June 15th 1996, the USA, Arlington National Cemetery/

On a sunny, cloudless day driven by a slight breeze that made all of the flags on display flutter open fully, the funeral of General Lucas Bassire Moralto took place a week after his death. After the formal investigation found that the General had been suffering from an extreme case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder stemming from half a century of Warfare. The psychological impact of such life experiences could never be imagined, let alone understood, which was what had masked the symptoms of his illness as it developed over time until it was too late.

People in high places wanted all kinds of details added and subtracted from the final report, but Moralto had known a great many people during his life and was the kind of man who always left an impression, good or bad. Eventually the conflict behind the scenes reached an abrupt end when a very, very senior figure spelt out how things would be in a way which no-one dared complain about. Enough of the truth had to reach the public ear to stop nosy Reporters and Conspiracy freaks after all, but, as always, no-one said everything they /could/ have.

So many service personnel, serving, retired and barely even recruited, came to the funeral, which was held with full Military Honours, that the organisers had to hire dozens of extra staff, lay on several times more than the number of decorations and honours that would normally be required and set up a network of barriers to channel the literally hundreds-strong body of men and women by the grave without causing a stampede or chaos. With two ex-Presidents, three former Cabinet members and so many in the way of senior ranking military personnel to deal with that, alone, they took over three hours to file past and pay their respects, things were just getting worse and worse for the organisers as time went on. When they considered that, after all of the Military personnel from the three services who had come to pay their respects there were at least twice as many again left made up of civilians who had known him somehow, several of the organisers just wanted to run away and hide.

But the man who was being put in that grave would have laughed at the odds, greeted everyone by their first name, shaken hands and been ready for more at the end of a sixteen-hour day, so giving in was never an option. Besides which, anyone who fell foul of their duty where this day and this man were concerned would have been very unwise to show his or her face ever again in the same circles, so no-one dared even imagine it.

Among the earliest arrivals were those injured in action who had known him. Among these was Aaron Bradley, stuck in a Wheelchair, still swathed in bandages with his arm set in plaster and hung in a sling. Barely recognisable, he was escorted by two Nurses who checked the state of his medication via IV lines constantly and regularly. Despite his bindings he had managed to sling his uniform jacket over his shoulders and his cap on his head, marking himself as an Army Engineer. He managed a steady salute with his good arm somehow as he was slowly wheeled past the grave.

Chris Redfield came some time later, walking slowly but steadily on his own two feet with stitches on his scalp where some of his hair had been neatly shaved off. After a week in Military Hospital being patched and stitched back together, he had been passed as fit for light duties and had promptly been placed under intensive investigation by the Military Police accused of Insubordination, Disobeying a Direct Order, breaking Regulations and a variety of other Charges. All of them together would have put a major dent in his Service Record but shouldn't have gotten him kicked out of the Air Force, only he had heard on the grapevine that was exactly what the Prosecution was pushing for-and was likely to get…

Funnily enough, he found the thought really quite relaxing. With his memory of his last mission a nightmare blur that, just sometimes, cleared enough to wake him up screaming at night, he got the distinct impression that there were a great many things he wasn't being told as people seemed to breathe a sigh of deep relief when he confirmed that he had almost no recollection of events. Worse, with Moralto dead by his own hand, with an explanation Chris wouldn't accept, the old lure that had initially drawn him to the Air Force was just no longer there. He no longer had the drive, the need or the reasons he once had to be where he was, so getting out now honestly suited him. He wouldn't Quit, that implied he'd accepted defeat or had done something wrong, but he wasn't going to pull out all of the stops to fight back, either…

As he walked away from the grave, he caught sight of a lone figure partially concealed by a stand of trees about twenty metres away from the solemn, ongoing hustle and bustle. Tall, darkly dressed in a flowing black dress and shoes, with long jet-black hair falling down and loose over her shoulders, sapphire blue eyes shining in a face of exquisite perfection with tawny skin only highlighting her fine features beneath the suns shadowed light. The most beautiful woman he'd ever even seen… _Serena_. He hadn't seen her in the week since they'd got back, she'd never come to visit him in Hospital. He'd hoped she'd be here, now she was…

Without hesitation, he turned on his heel and strode towards her.

Y

Serena Baccarin had..._problems_ with being seen in public, even by people who might just know who she was, all linked to her profession, so she tended to avoid public places wherever possible. The funeral of General Moralto, however, most definitely qualified as an exception, so she'd made the effort and even managed to wear a dress. That /thought/ was almost scary, she couldn't remember the last time she'd gone out "casually" not wearing something she could either move freely in or use as a weapon...

She silently said a Prayer to a God she didn't believe in asking him to take care of the old man soon to be put in the ground, then she saw Chris and felt a smile creep across her face. He spotted her, turned and came straight for her. Her smile took over her face and made her eyes shine, she felt an unfamiliar quiver in her chest and actually had to think to realise what it was. She'd well and truly fallen for the young man and now her body was letting her know... Oh, this was /_such_/ a bad idea...

Chris Redfield walked up in front of her and gave her the full once-over. He smiled, reached out a hand and brushed a stray hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. She didn't feel the need to break his wrist, rip his arm off or snap his fingers one by one... That almost terrified her by itself. Her /brother/ rarely dared get that close to her anymore and he /knew/ he was in no danger, yet Chris had reached out to her as though it was the most natural thing in the world and run a light caress over her face. He didn't set off /any/ of the multiple, often lethal alarms in her mind and body built into her over the years to not only allow her to survive, but thrive in her chosen profession. What did that mean? Was she in /Love/ with him?

"You heal fast" commented Chris, his tone light, teasing. Her injuries were already either gone or faded to the point that you had to stare hard to find them, all of the stiffness and headaches she'd suffered from after her return had vanished. Her bruises were fading fast, she was as good as healed even including the stab wound in her side. Something to be glad of...

"Its part of my job description. Sorry I couldn't come and see you at the Hospital, but I thought that you could use some rest and if I /had/ you'd have been debriefed by the FBI, CIA and NSA just to begin with" replied Serena. That said, she looked at him, then stepped forwards and pulled him into a close embrace. His uniform wasn't thick enough to stop him feeling every curve and firm, warm line of her body pressing against his, nor her dress thick enough to prevent his muscular frame pressing into hers. She pressed her face into his shoulder and ran a hand through his hair in a slow caress that made his heart rate triple. "I missed you, though..." she added, very quietly.

"I could talk all day about how good it is to see you again, Serena, but I wouldn't do you justice. How about, instead, I take you out, buy you a good meal, get you drunk and then take you home so we can have some proper desert? I make killer ice-cream Mousses of any flavour, coffee so strong it melts cups /and/ saucers and can whip up a cake I call "Death by chocolate" in two hours. My treat, I insist" said Chris, taking her right hand and kissing it like a gentleman would-he hoped.

Serena smiled, then actually laughed. The sound was soft, sweet and reminded Chris of all kinds of pleasures, her throaty, full laugh encouraging him to remember the more...sensual ones. Svelte, sensual, smart and /SO/ drop dead fantasy-is-too-weak-a-word beautiful that he felt like pinching himself to make sure he was actually awake and alive when he looked at her, let alone touched her... He was either going to regret this for the rest of his life or die laughing like a loon. He really /did/ hope that it was the latter...

"Done. Just don't get distracted or overdo it, I have a swimming pool and a king-size bed back at my place and if I don't scream down the Heaven's /AFTER/ we've attended your place, well... If we don't wake up so tangled together we have to share a Shower I will /NOT/ be impressed. Clear?" said Serena, a glint in her eye and a look on her face he couldn't identify.

He didn't swallow, he retained that much self-control somehow, even though it took a supreme act of will to prevent his knees from buckling at her words. Every fantasy he'd ever entertained seemed to get burnt right out of his mind at just the /thought/ of what she was suggesting. "Done" he managed to say, despite a throat and mouth that were suddenly dryer than the Sahara Desert.

"Good" replied Serena, shifting to link her right arm through his left. "Shall we? We've both paid our respects, after all... Oh, and Chris? Keep this under your hat, I /mean/ it, but its Baccarin, Serena Baccarin..."

/August 17th 1996, the USA, New York/

The final Verdict had, no surprise, been a Dishonourable Discharge from the Air Force. He honestly didn't care-in fact, it felt like freedom, he felt like he was floating free on the wind, finally cut loose of the restrictions of Military life, just over a month since the papers were formally served... Of course, where he was and who was with just might have had something to do with that.

The _Bacchae_ Nightclub in New York was an underground rave centre where people came to try, and do, anything and everything, especially at night-like now. Drugs, Herbs, Sex, Pain, even Magic in the form of Voodoo and a variety of Fertility Rites from every culture and system of belief in the whole wide world. Turn and step forwards at the right time in here, you could find anyone, do anything. Everyone in here wanted to do something they'd never done before and they were willing to do pretty much anything, pay any amount to get that thing. He'd seen at least two big-name celebrities he knew in here so far, one male one female, one of them had been looking decidedly nervous...

None of that mattered, the only drug, pleasure, poison or person he needed right now was right /here/ in front of him. Even as thunderous music blasted out from loudspeakers and shook the whole building, denting the eardrums of everyone there as every shade of light in the spectrum flashed everywhere and anywhere. Even as so many scents, sights and sounds drifted across his senses that he couldn't hope to identify, as a striking female dancer jumped on the bar and started stripping off, obviously so drunk she didn't even know what she was doing, he /knew/ that for a solid, absolute /fact/.

Dressed in torn jeans, worn old black trainers and nothing else, his bare chest on display even as sweat from incredible heat-the place /was/ literally underground, after all-slicked down every part of his body to the point that he would have slipped through the hands of the most determined female admirer, of which there were /several, he just smiled. There was only one woman he wanted and he could hold onto her with his own two hands, thank you very much...

Serena Baccarin, wearing an off-the-shoulder strapless black vest that bared her midriff, skin tight leggings and knee-length soft leather boots of the same colour, needed no introduction. Her hair down, loose and wild, her eyes bright, wild and alive, a little cleavage on display beneath a top she seemed almost destined to slip right out of, a silver Ankh on a silver-black chain around her neck... With her slinky, sensual dance moves, phenomenal natural grace and agility and a breathtaking beauty that challenged the eye to absorb... Even totally devoid of makeup and jewellery, which she didn't need, every eye in the place was on her. She truly was a Goddess, she could and would have eaten alive and spat out in pieces anyone there if so inclined. /But, she only had eyes for him. Not men, not women got even a moments attention beyond an instant recognition of where and what.

He couldn't match her, couldn't come anywhere near close, but he /knew/ he was the one who'd be taking her home tonight. That was the only simple truth he needed. Tough on anyone who couldn't take that in. If there was /one thing/ Chris knew, it was that no-one owned Serena Baccarin. /She/ chose /you, or she didn't, there were no grey areas.

Even the servers on the bar were staring at her over the woman on their bar now down to her underwear who was pouring alcohol and ice cubes all over her breasts. That woman could have pulled a gun and started shooting, no one would have noticed until hit. "Magnetic" was too weak a word for the effect Serena was having on every man and most of the women in the _Bacchae_...

He didn't have the words or the imagination to even /begin/ to describe what the Hellcat he was sleeping with was like in bed...

He finally registered the Mobile on his belt was ringing, with some irritation. He snapped it open-his eyebrows rose when he saw Barry Burton's number. He glanced back at Serena, mouthed "Got to take this" and winked. The look she shot him would have made a Saint have second thoughts, but he laughed and shook his head, holding up the fingers and thumb of one hand to show he'd be quick. She shook her head, tossing her mane of hair behind her, then gave him a slow, predatory stare that spoke of all /kinds/ of things to come that very nearly made his heart give out at just the possibilities. With a wink he literally ran out of the club, almost bowling over several revellers on the way, one of whom yelled and took a shot at him he ducked under, not missing a step.

He got outside in less than a minute, shouting for Barry to hold on over the deafening roar of sound. It was almost as warm outside, the humidity made him sweat even more and the temperature made him feel as though he'd stepped back into Iraq without pause for thought. He put the phone to his ear, almost able to hear, and spoke. "Sorry, Barry, little noisy here. What was that?" he called. Too loudly, unknown to him.

"I'm not deaf yet, Chris, tone it down. What I /said/ was you are in New York, yes?" asked Barry, his deep voice rumbling over the line like distant thunder. Chris almost forgot just how big Barry Burton was sometimes, six feet tall and almost two hundred pounds made up of muscle and bone on a massive frame, but every time he heard his old friends voice he remembered very clearly.

"Yes, sure am, at a bit of a loose end since the Air Force gave me my walking papers and told me where to shove it. I'm here with...someone special. Why? Something up?" replied Chris, his hearing slowly returning to normal as he stayed away from the incredible noise inside the nightclub. Serena's hearing was much sharper than his, he wondered just how she was managing in there... Perfectly, come to think of it, if he knew her at all. He did, too, at least a little after two months together, even though they'd hardly spent every waking hour together just talking or doing stuff.

"Kind of... Look, Chris, I might just have a very pleasant surprise for you. Could you drop by the S.T.A.R.S. International HQ shortly? Say, tonight if possible?" asked Barry, a request that made Chris's eyebrows shoot up. S.T.A.R.S. weren't the kind of organisation that issued casual invitations to their HQ, even when you were a close long-term friend of a senior officer like Barry. Being called there at this hour made him wonder if his Sister, Claire, had called the man she almost regarded as a "big" big brother to complain about this mystery woman in Chris's life and the fact that he was no longer employed but seemed in no rush to get a new job. He hadn't broken any laws that he could /think/ of...

He turned a little to help him think with a new perspective-then caught sight of the two bodies on a car in the back car park, one atop the other, the lower one a very attractive blond with healthy curves revealed by the fact her top was around her shoulders. That was bad enough, but by the time he realised that the brunette was a woman too he'd worked out just what they were doing. He turned so sharply that he almost fell over, sure that the heat from his face would melt the phone in seconds.

"Sure, but can I bring a friend?" he managed, his voice strangled as he shut his eyes and tried to forget the sight of soft curves and lips...

Y

Serena Baccarin knew how to have fun, properly, no matter what anyone thought of her. She could dance the moon down and the sun up, beat the best at any contest of moves, drink anyone under the table and could even hold a tune if she put her mind to it, although she'd never claim to be a real singer. Things she wouldn't do, though, included doing a Striptease, trying any incapacitating drug-with her conscious mind cut out of the information chain it could have unimaginable consequences-and casual sex up against the nearest wall with some beefy idiot who saw a sexy young woman alone on a dance floor.

That was why she was pinning the big man who'd annoyed her to the floor in a kneeling position by his nose, twisted in such a way that a fraction more pressure would snap it before she rotated it entirely around and ripped it off of his face. He was in so much pain he couldn't even move, or do anything more than moan, but she could see in his watering eyes than he knew exactly how much shit he'd dropped himself in by grabbing her breasts from behind and treating them like play dough without even a by-your-leave. He was going to be lucky if he walked out of this place, let alone left it able to write or even close his fingers.

She ignored the part-curious, part morbid curiosity stares of the few men and women watching and applied even more pressure, blood rising in his cheeks as it started to run down his face from his nostrils. She just grinned broadly where he could see her face, then leaned in very close to his ear so that she wouldn't have to shout. "Apologise..." she whispered into his ear, her tone of voice suggesting that it would be a very healthy decision.

He didn't do anything but whimper in pain, tears and blood mixing as they ran down his face. He was literally shaking in pain and physical strain, he was going to pass out if she pushed much harder-or he thought he was. She had some expertise with these things, so she knew better.

"Apologise" she said again, not whispering this time, instead hissing it into his ear like a venomous snake. She twisted that bit harder, blood began to flow freely down his face from his nose rather than the slow drips of before. He almost screamed, but couldn't, it hurt too much. He would have collapsed, but her grip didn't change at all and he stayed upright. He started to make incoherent noises of suffering, then seemed to try to say something.

She leant in so close that his lips almost brushed her cheek. In another world she'd have sliced his lips right off for getting that close, after gluing them together first probably. She heard him hiss something, leaned in even closer, twisting just that little bit more... "I-I-I'm s...sorry..." he finally managed to whisper. She let go and he collapsed like a sack of potatoes, utterly helpless and less than half-conscious.

"There now, that wasn't so hard was it?" she said, staring down at the mans limp form in nothing but contempt as appreciative whistles and claps sounded from around her. She only just registered them, before she saw Chris coming towards her. He jerked his head, outside, something had obviously come up. Oh well, she couldn't help but think. That jerk had ruined the atmosphere anyway...

Chris retrieved his worn white T-shirt from the lockers and slipped it on before they stepped outside. She hadn't brought anything she wasn't wearing or carrying already, a Pager, a Mobile and her wallet, so she had nothing to collect. They went outside, passing two men unconscious and already stripped naked, everything on them of value stolen, lying dead to the world in the gutter, before turning towards a road to a slightly more respectable part of town, a place where you could actually find a Cab or Bus rather than burnt-out wrecks. She shot a quizzical glance at Chris, but he just motioned for silence and glanced around them. She took the hint and said nothing.

They passed a group of men and women, all clearly high on a massive combination of drugs and alcohol, dancing around a metal barrel with a fire burning in it. She suspected that not all of them would survive the night the state they were in. Grunting and moaning coming from two different alleys involving at least six different voices she could make out made one wish for a lack of imagination as weak streetlights allowed glimpses of skin, blood and clothes. They even passed one man covered head to foot in animal tattoos and what looked like blood who appeared to be swearing his Soul to Satan. Well, it was a free country and she was pretty sure that Devil worship wasn't illegal, whether you were insane or not given the look in his eyes...

They finally crossed to the main street and began looking for a Cab even as Serena gave Chris a long look. "Alright, Chris, spill it. What's happened and where are we going?" she asked, raising an eyebrow even as she casually took his hand in hers. It /still/ felt weird to be able to do anything like that so casually...

"S.T.A.R.S. International Headquarters in central New York, I got an interesting phone call from an old friend that gave me the idea. That a problem for you?" Chris replied, signalling a Cab which completely ignored them and drove by at speed, much to his evident irritation. Serena hid a smirk, no-one ignored /her/.

"No, S.T.A.R.S. is completely off the grid as far as I'm concerned, I could do the Tango with you in the lobby for an hour and no-one would care who I was. But Chris? Its 23:49 by me, so just who the Hell are we going to see at this hour? No-one who knows I'm alive wants me dead /that/ badly and you know, what...half a dozen people in Law enforcement who are ex-Military or associated elements?" said Serena, waving down a Cab which stopped so sharply that the tires smoked. Male driver, had to be...

"Barry Burton, used to be SWAT in LA until he moved to S.T.A.R.S. after eight years on the job as one of the best back in '90. I met him on domestic manoeuvres with the Air Force when we trained to team with S.T.A.R.S. units in '94 in case we were ever required to support a special "Police Action" on US territory for Counter-Terrorism duties. Get a few beers in him and he lightens up no end, great fun to be around too. Has a wife and two young daughters who keep him well and truly down to Earth, mind. One of the best, I'd do anything for him" said Chris, as they got into the taxi and he gave the driver the address. The swarthy Caribbean man just grinned, displaying several empty holes where teeth used to be, leered openly at Serena, then hit the gas so hard it felt like the back of the car was falling off before they suddenly moved, fast.

"Sounds like I'd like him..." said Serena, even as the Cab weaved in and out of late-night traffic like they were playing a computer game in high speed pursuit. Most people would have just held on for dear life or cried at the lunatic pace and style, Serena looked as though she was having a blast and Chris was used to jets which travelled at hundreds of miles an hour casually. Neither of them did anything but sit back, relax and wait for the ride to end.

S.T.A.R.S. International Headquarters had armed security guards on all the doors with access to a literal arsenal of weapons and orders to shoot to kill. As long as it was on-premises no charges could be pressed, both Chris and Serena knew that, due to the unique nature of the S.T.A.R.S. organisation. Completely international with accepted jurisdiction and authority in dozens of countries where it literally acted as a Paramilitary Police force for most it was, like Interpol, allowed to operate under special Charter and conditions that defined, very clearly, what it could and could not do. One of the accepted articles of its Charter was the right of members to use lethal force in the line of duty, which included defence of any of its facilities against any attackers and intruders. Trying to just walk in could literally get you shot, so Chris and Serena were very glad that Barry Burton was waiting outside to greet them when they arrived.

Six foot tall, almost two hundred pounds of muscle and bone with very little fat set about a physically massive frame that dwarfed Chris's, a man with huge shoulders and heavy muscles that spoke of extensive workouts, Barry Burton was a giant of a man who looked like he could bench-press four Chris's without much trouble. With his thick flame-red hair and neatly trimmed beard, at the age of thirty-six, Serena couldn't help but think he put one in mind of the old tales about giants who walked the mountains with huge iron clubs battering unwary travellers... But, dressed in dark-blue jeans, black trainers, cream shirt and brown leather jacket, that was where the thought stopped. Especially given the warm and welcoming smile on his friendly face...

"Chris! Good to see you again... Bloody Hell, pardon my French. Who's this Angel and where does she hail from?" said Barry, walking forwards with long, steady strides and pumping Chris's hand enthusiastically, his vice-like grip turning Chris's hand into hamburger even as he drank in the alluring vision that was Serena Baccarin. His eyes were a luminous green traced with darkness, like emeralds in the shadows of night, the kind of eyes which told Serena he'd seen a great many bad things in his time, some /very/ bad, maybe /too/ many... It was a good thing that no-one could ever tell anything from her expression, or her eyes, unless she wanted them to, her eyes cool diamonds, her face immune to shock. He reminded her of her, in the sense that she might have ended up this way in another world...

"From Hell, Barry Burton, and she's called Serena, lets just leave it at that. Now, you called, we came, so what's up?" replied Serena, her posture relaxed. Despite the fact that she looked almost as though she was dozing, she'd already run through ten different ways to take out all three men without a shot being fired, nine of which ended with them all dead. The last one left Chris behind, but she didn't ever want to do that... Did she?

"I like you, Serena, your as blunt as Chris can be and your straight to the point. Lets go upstairs, there's someone you should meet..." replied Barry, with a slight shake of his head as he took them inside.

The person Chris was there to meet was Captain Albert Wesker of the Racoon City S.T.A.R.S., as it turned out, and he had an offer to make after several suggestions made by Barry which were backed up by people Chris would never have imagined cared in the Air Force. It led to Chris's recruitment into the S.T.A.R.S. organisation proper, after which he attended the Academy to learn basic through to advanced Police skills to add to his existing knowledge and skills. A year later, Chris gained his wings as a full-fledged S.T.A.R.S. field agent and was assigned to his first post and proving ground, Racoon City, under his recruiting officer, Captain Wesker.

Despite various Cases successfully investigated, solved and Closed over the following year, the first Major Incident Investigation Chris Redfield was ever involved in was the "Cannibal Murders" Case when the outskirts of Racoon City became plagued by vicious attacks where the victims were partially consumed by their, apparently human, attackers. He never thought to call a woman he was slowly drifting away from, since their drastically different schedules made it so difficult to keep in touch, to ask her opinions...

/August 18th 1996, the USA, Washington D.C./

Enough money can buy anything, even the hearts and minds of true patriots, dedicated Scientists and Doctors of every speciality who should and do know better. It could buy the use of facilities the US Government couldn't even admit existed, the silence-permanently if necessary-of any official who might be or become interested in certain places, names and actions and the loyalty of anyone who ever wanted a family-or had one. Enough money could make the truth go away forever and open every door there was while shutting down everything that might ever even possibly get in the way of what was required...

William Birkin was a man who felt he had good reason to know this simple truth. He'd worked for Umbrella since 1969, when they'd recruited him while he was still in University at the tender age of nineteen, then put the gifted and brilliant young Scientist to work on designing a variation on a radical new Virus, recently discovered, that could be used as a Bioweapon. The Virus's original creators were dead, so no problem there. It repaired the human body, as well as any other form of life it was tested on, right up to re-growing lost limbs and making one better than new? Tricky, but not impossible.

With ample test subjects, time and all the resources he'd ever need, he'd set to work. He'd had sporadic successes-in the Vietnam War in 1970, for example, when the US Air Force had had to drop tons of explosives and defoliants on a test area to finally destroy the mutant strains created when a "Wildfire" experiment had gotten so completely out of control that a full team heavily armed with flamethrowers and explosives had simply disappeared under it-but now, finally, he was /almost/ there. In '92 he'd finally created a mutant strain, classified as the T-Virus, or "Test" Virus, that could mutate test subjects in controlled conditions without risk of contamination without extreme physical intervention, such as physical injury. Now he'd almost perfected the massively superior G-Virus, or "God" Virus, a true mutant with /real/ potential, he just needed a year or two more to finish it. Of course, if Spencer really was watching him as closely as he was increasingly convinced he was, his increasing paranoia was more than worth the sleepless nights. It was /his/ and /no-one/ was taking it away from him...

He looked up at the ten foot tall by four wide transparent armoured glass Stasis tube in front of him in the Umbrella lab, set up with the most advanced tech available in the middle of the Umbrella HQ in the USA, in the capital of course, entirely behind closed doors and blank walls. The tube was filled with a light blue liquid that held in place the slowly drifting humanoid inside it, a nude man with an oxygen mask over his whole face who was Comatose at the minute, all of the scars from his recent battles still very evident.

He glanced at the Patients notes-Mickey Andrew Webb, thirty-five years old, Special Forces soldier with the US army. In superb physical and mental health. Exposed to Umbrella-designed Steroids by Professor Robert Creig which had permanently altered the functions of certain of his vital organs and stopped his heart three times before finally purged through aggressive treatment. The steroids had kept him alive despite multiple fatal injuries for long enough to allow him to be repaired by /real/ Surgeons Umbrella kept specially for their unique skills. The Orders form was clear-they still wanted to know what to do with him.

Dressed in Doctors scrubs, white overcoat and immaculate black shoes, his brown eyes glinting with intelligence and suspicion even as his brown hair showed traces of grey at the edges, at forty-six years old Birkin-or Doctor Birkin, as he preferred to be called-looked like what he was, Umbrella's top Scientist and go-to man for anything to do with Biologicals, weaponised or otherwise. Everyone knew that, everyone, but still they watched him far too closely...

"Well, William? Any change?" said the one man in the facility who would dare refer to him by his Christian name. Of course, there was little that Albert Wesker would not dare, or do.

Sometime Captain of the elite Paramilitary Police organisation the Special Tactics And Rescue Squad, or S.T.A.R.S.. Sometime senior Consultant and Security Division officer for White Umbrella, the Umbrella Corporations Covert Action Division which operated Projects best described politely as illegal, Wesker was a man who wore many hats. Captain of the Racoon City S.T.A.R.S., he was also second in command regarding Security for the whole city area, which included Umbrella's primary covert research facility, the Hive. His responsibilities ranged from containing any accidents which occurred to dealing with unfortunate witnesses to procuring subjects for experiments and making sure no-one was missed, ever.

At the age of 36, Wesker was a solid six feet of lean physical power and grace. A full head of ice-blond hair and penetrating glacier-blue eyes were set about a smoothly handsome face which made him look ten years younger, although the cold, hard manner with which he treated everyone put most off even considering getting to know him-which was the idea. Wearing his normal black shirt, trousers and hard leather boots he made Birkin think of death in all the wrong ways. You could never predict what this man was going to do, he was so ruthlessly lethal it was rumoured Spencer went to him directly for certain matters solution...

"Yeah, Willy, tell us what's happening with this idiot before you start slicing off bits so that I can at least get a good look before its gone..." said the woman standing beside Wesker, a look in her eyes that Birkin didn't dare guess at the meaning of. Wesker might just actually kill him if annoyed enough, that woman would do /so/ much worse...

Her name was Lianna Styx, but most knew her better by her nickname, "Roulette", since everyone knew you risked literally everything, including your life, merely by talking to her. Five and three-quarter feet tall, about a hundred and thirty pounds of compact muscle, slim but smoothly curvy with a bone structure to die for and full lips added to swarthy, golden skin telling of Arabic blood despite an evident European appearance otherwise, Lianna Styx was better described as darkly devastating than merely beautiful. Oddly, though, her hair was a bright red-gold of the purest kind, almost never seen down and loose since it was constantly in a tight ponytail down her back.

She was /never/ seen without gold-frame sunglasses with ruby lenses that totally obscured her eyes, although only Wesker and Birkin knew why. Her eyes were totally devoid of visible features, she had no apparent iris, pupil or other normal feature. Instead, her eyes were totally Amethyst in colour, an unearthly, incredible purple that could never be adequately described. This somehow meant that she had superior eyesight to almost anyone either of them knew. The Chinese ideogram for loss under her left eye had never been explained...

Despite the fact that she was wearing the same uniform as Wesker, Security Division standard, and her evident youth-she was only in her mid twenties-she was Wesker's superior and the Agent in charge of Security for the whole Racoon City area. Wesker had over a decades more experience than she did in such matters, but unique qualifications had gotten her the job, at which she more than excelled. The fact that it was common knowledge in senior circles that she and Wesker often plumbed the heights and depths of sexual depravity for hours at a time, without pause for rest, ever, made this less surprising to some. But then, very few knew as much about her as Birkin did...

"As you know, this is the man our Retrieval team pulled out of the destroyed facility Robert Creig compromised in Iraq, his agent in fact. He is now stabilised, but has suffered major physical and mental trauma and will probably never recover fully from the effects of his injuries and the Steroids Creig used on him. He has also been permanently altered by what Creig did to him... To be perfectly honest, I don't believe that he'll get any worse or any better without further treatment, if we woke him up I'm not even sure he'd be able to move. Options are to restore his health, interrogate him, then slice him up and use him for spare parts. Chop his arms and legs off, cover him in cement, mount him on a steel pole and give him to Irons's as another "present"-" Birkin said, before Wesker interrupted him.

"Or enrol him in the Tyrant Project?" asked Wesker, without missing a beat, his lip curled as he correctly guessed where Birkin was going with his train of thought. They really had known each other for too long, Birkin couldn't help but think.

"Yes-" Birkin began, only to be cut off by Lianna this time. He would have glared at her in annoyance, but didn't want to wake up to discover his internal organs being removed from his body while he was still alive, so he pointedly didn't. Just like he didn't dare even attempt to stare at her sultry good looks, people who did had been known to reappear with eyes missing and broken fingers before now.

"That means the Hive, which leads straight back to me. I'll get it cleared, you get him there, Willy. I'll have to keep a close personal eye on this one, could be fun..." said Lianna, her lips shifting into the kind of smile guaranteed to accelerate the heartbeat of anyone under seventy. William Birkin was suddenly, again, very, very glad that he was happily married to Annette, with a young daughter, Sherry, to remember if he needed anything else to distract him from thoughts of Lianna Styx, a.k.a. "Roulette"...

Y

Albert Wesker got Chris Redfield assigned to Racoon City S.T.A.R.S. partially because of strong hints from Barry Burton, partially on Umbrella's Orders to make sure that Chris never remembered anything about Iraq. If he did, Wesker had very clear instructions on how to deal with the situation, but Chris never did, ever.

Mickey Webb was the first successful Tyrant-Class BOW created through a combination of radical surgical intervention, controlled mutation and extreme psychological conditioning. However, the control protocols were never fully established successfully and, on his release by Albert Wesker during the Spencer Mansion incident during the "Cannibal Murders" Case in late 1998 when the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team became trapped in the Mansion while attempting to locate the missing Bravo team, Wesker himself was the first casualty of this BOW. Neither Chris Redfield or the creature formerly known as Mickey Webb recognised the other, but Webb's life was finally ended on the roof of the Spencer Mansion by Chris with an Anti-Tank Missile.

Documents detailing Webb's fate later discovered in the Paris offices of the Umbrella Corporation during Claire Redfield's abortive infiltration of the Umbrella HQ in 1999 would, when run past Serena Baccarin, only cause her to issue the statement: "Finally, a man who got what he deserved". On confirmation of his certain death, his gravestone was defaced with the words "GONE TO HELL" carved out of the stone with a chisel, completely obscuring the original inscription.

William Birkin died in 1998 beneath Racoon City after being caught in an exploding train when Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield destroyed their means of escape after successfully fleeing the city to escape the Outbreak. The Outbreak was caused by the escape of the T-Virus into the cities water supply following a failed attack by Umbrella Assassins on William Birkin in his lab, in an attempt to steal the G-Virus he was concealing from Umbrella. Birkin injected himself with a massive overdose of the G-Virus to transform himself into a Mutant creation capable of defeating his would-be Assassins successfully, but was unable to survive the trains destruction. However, G-Virus samples were retrieved by Agent Hunk for Umbrella and a revived Albert Wesker, working with the Mercenary Agent Ada Wong and Lianna Styx, for himself.

Lianna Styx, a.k.a. Roulette, failed in all attempts to contain the Outbreak in first the Hive in 1998, then the Mansion, then the White Umbrella facility in the Arklay Mountains, then in Racoon City itself. This was all due to interference from above in the shape of Directives from the Umbrella Board of Directors and senior Scientific Personnel who wished to observe the progress of the Virus in an uncontrolled environment. She finally lost her temper when she discovered that an Umbrella Assassination Squad had caused the catastrophe in Racoon in an attempt to seize the G-Virus by force from a paranoid William Birkin, who was convinced that such an attempt was imminent and had told her so days before it occurred.

Having barely succeeded in saving her Lover, Albert Wesker, from the Spencer Mansion disaster with Trent's help, she saved his life by injecting him with the X-Virus, or "Pandora" Virus since it could heal any wound but always had unpredictable side effects. In Wesker's case the Virus apparently gave him superhuman physical characteristics. This done, she considered her options, then went rogue and accepted a senior position at Umbrella's main competitor, HCF, after recovering a sample of the G-Virus with Wesker and Ada Wong's help in the tunnels beneath Racoon City. Rumours that she abandoned Umbrella so completely because of her discovery of the true fate of Alice Abernathy, her third in Command and closest female friend and ally bar her Sister Jena Styx, a.k.a. Domino, on top of everything else, still abound.

Since Pierre Dupree's literal decapitation of HCF, when he Assassinated the entire Board of Directors including the Chairman and caused the implosion of the company as terrified staff Resigned en masse, many going into hiding, Jianna has found herself at a loose end. Her current whereabouts and actions, as are Weskers, are unknown. However, it is rumoured Jianna may be attempting to contact either the renegade S.T.A.R.S. or SOC(Special Operations Command) with a view to aiding them in their on-going War with Umbrella in an effort to deal with the Corporation once and for all.

Serena Baccarin is currently assigned to the SOC as an extraordinary Agent who is deployed to deal with threats and issues that no-one in the SOC proper can. Since the illegal internal Coup inside the US Government that deposed President Bush which was caused by the Umbrella Corporations influence, Serena has been authorised to deal with specific targets by whatever means necessary both inside and outside Government circles. This operation was initiated on the direct Order of Ian Williams, Director of the SOC.

What her actions will be now that the latest Umbrella attack has occurred, with the Biological attack on Manhattan in 2001 being blamed on S.T.A.R.S. and SOC backed Terrorists supplied with the T-Virus, is not yet known.

THE END...

/This really IS The End of the story, for those of you who have got this far. Thank you to everyone and I hope you enjoyed it. Questions? Comments? Reviews of any kind? All welcomed, including Flames/.

P.S. Serena Baccarin's full Profile is included below.

Name: Serena Liparti. (Baccarin is assumed surname)

Age: 33 (in 2001).

Gender: Female.

Nickname: Reaper.

Physical Appearance: Hair held in loose ponytail, tawny skin result of South American ancestry (Argentinean mother). Exceptionally fit and agile due to constant exercise since age of ten. Has a tattoo of a Phoenix (Firebird) over her heart, wears a silver Ankh on a black leather strap around her neck. When she chooses to dress up, she can be breathtaking. When she is carrying out business, she is simply particularly striking.

Combat clothing: jet-black halter top held by straps at shoulders, loose jacket, trousers and knee-length boots of same colour, made of Nomex weave designed to provide limited protection from fire and hard targets-knives, bullets, shrapnel, etc. Wears black combat webbing to hold her gear, i.e. variety of spare ammunition and grenades, variety of Specialist gear (see Military background).

Bio: Height: 5,11.

Weight: 130 pounds.

Eyes: sapphire blue.

Hair: Jet-black.

Race: Caucasian American/American Indian, mixed race, born in New Orleans.

Mother: Selina Abjas-Liparti, Nurse, (Born) 1945-(Died) 1986.

Father: Adam Liparti, Sergeant in US Marines, (Born) 1932-

Brother: Jonathon Liparti, Journalist, (Born) 1975-

Personality: Cold-blooded killer who lets very, very few people under her guard, ever. Friendship and romance are almost unknowns to her. She has complete and unquestioning faith in the USA itself and its values, not the government or the people she works for. So levelheaded and calm in any situation that professionals defer to her-NOTE: this is due to extreme emotional trauma suffered at 16 (see personal background). She simply does not loose her self-control, ever. Dislikes renegades and rogues from organisations like S.T.A.R.S. intensely, but understands their reasoning with cases like Umbrella. Her nickname/call sign is "Reaper" because she is so efficient a killer, if she wants someone dead or something destroyed she will simply do whatever it takes without hesitation. Very loyal to those who have earned her trust (i.e. Chris Redfield). Despite her visual distinctiveness, she can blend in in any company without difficulty due to natural talent-she would have made a superb actress.

Favourite weapon: Combat knives.

Rank: Specialist (Carries rank of Major in US Air Force).

Team Position: Sniper (Assassin to those who know).

Weapons of Choice: Special issue enhanced V-9 Snipers rifle with Silencer (see Military Background), Glock 45., 2 silenced customised 9MM Browning pistols, 2-shot holdout Magnum mini-pistol, 2 combat knives.

SPECIAL NOTE: Her gear includes tools necessary to construct basic biological and chemical weapons as well as explosives if necessary, all she needs are supplies and time.

Background: Father fought in Korean War 1950-53 in Marines from age of 18-21, Vietnam 1968-1972 from age of 36-40, saw and did things that he's been sworn never to talk about with anyone under any circumstances. Extremely patriotic, but wanted to keep daughter out of services at all costs due to understanding of consequences. Taught her Street Fighting and physical discipline techniques from age of ten for own protection.

However, at age sixteen Serena came home from school to find her mother butchered abattoir style floating in a bath full of her own blood. When medical examination revealed she had been repeatedly raped and mutilated first, father went nuts, got his old M-16 and a meat-cleaver and went looking for those responsible. When he found them, it took Forensic officers a solid week to separate the remains and clean up the scene. Father was tried for triple murder but cleared on basis of insanity plea when psychiatric reports confirmed that his wife's brutal murder had left him deranged. He was committed instead, and is unlikely to ever be released since considered a psychotic lunatic with homicidal tendencies, extremely extensive military training and experience.

Unable to cope on her own, Serena enlisted less than a year later, aged 17, with the US Air Force to escape an unbearable life-also, she'd always dreamt of seeing the world from the skies point of view. Met Chris Redfield just before he was thrown out of the Air Force in 1996 when she was assigned to the same Top Secret mission that he was that finished his career when he disobeyed orders to leave a wounded man behind. Impressed by his resilience and skills, not to mention commitment to fellow American soldiers, she dated him for a while, but the relationship drifted along after he joined S.T.A.R.S. at Barry Burton's suggestion since their careers take them in such different directions. She still considers him her boyfriend, though, and would be very happy to pick up where they left off. Should be noted, however, that he doesn't know what her job actually is, only that she does Shadow Ops exclusively and is the best shot he knows, she's never missed to his knowledge. She has met Barry Burton briefly, but he only knows the very few details Chris has told him and what she looks like. Educated to Masters level, she holds two First Class Degrees, History (aged 23) and Criminology (28).

Military History: Joined US Air Force at 17 as trainee pilot, graduated at eighteen. Age 21 referred to ETC (Exceptional Tasks Commission) after receiving Silver Star, Medal of Congress and Purple Heart having survived being shot down over Iraq despite a catastrophic systems failure preventing her from ejecting. Spent three weeks on the run behind Iraqi lines despite being badly injured before walking out of Southern Iraq into allied camp. Record of report on events post-crash pre-recovery sealed by government until 2041, but common knowledge among US Special Forces in Iraq at time that she was single-handedly responsible for triple-figure death toll among pursuers, also that she did what she _had_ to do to survive deserts, near-total lack of food and water, marauding bands of soldiers and all other difficulties.

Recruited by ETC aged 21 and promoted from pilot to Lieutenant, taken off all official Air Force crew lists. Aged 21-25 trained in Urban and Rural Terrorism techniques and tactics, explosives, advanced combat techniques-armed and unarmed, enhanced weapons use, interrogation and extreme resistance to torture. Also trained in Ninjitsu, Krav Maga (Israeli army unarmed combat technique) and Hsing-I Street Fighting. Expert-level computer skills are a given for an ETC Officer of her position and rank, as are medical skills that allow her to perform field surgery if absolutely necessary.

Age 25 transferred to Cobra Division, top-secret Air Force Covert Operations and Wetworks unit, part of ETC, specifically intended to deal with terrorist threats to US interests outside US mainland. Unit function involves pre-emptive strikes against terrorist cells and other targets. Sent on a variety of missions aged 25-28 involving counter-terrorism activities all over world, promoted to Major at 28 and own death faked to cut all ties linking her to family, friends and service-a body was provided that is in her "grave". Since 2001 has been assigned on a permanent basis to SOC (Special Operations Command, anti-terrorist High Command) to act as Master Assassin for President, answering to Joint Chiefs and then the President only. If survives to 2004, due promotion to Colonel. No one below the Joint Chiefs can access her Dossier.

Military Record: CLASSIFIED UNTIL 100 YEARS AFTER OPERATIVES DEATH.

SPECIAL NOTE: She has never fought in a full-scale battle. However, since she joined the ETC she has logged twice the field time outside the United States soldiers twenty years her senior can boast in a great number of cases, in most cases the most downright dirty, dangerous missions one can think of. Her job has required her to live in the shadows and work among the filth for over a decade, letting her get to know all kinds of people and places. If you want to find the dirt on anyone or anything and can get to her, she can find it for you-_if_ she trusts you.


End file.
